Have there been any famous internet-related murders?
Well, there's Rachelle Waterman but, you know, it's just so sordid. All in all, I prefer this heart-warming internet-related fingers-and-toes amputation story. Love triumphs over all, baby. Except a 1600-mile hike in the dead of a Canadian winter. That beats love every time.
3: Do murders that people first discussed on their MySpace pages count? Jacob Robida's creepy Internet window is probably still archived somewhere, for example.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a plant that is nice but thrives on minimal care? I've decided that I need a plant in my office, but I absolutely will not under any circumstances put in the effort to take good care of it.
My default is to go with a big cactus, since I know they're hearty, but I'd prefer something leafier. It will have plenty of sunlight.
Well, if Brock is going to derail this thread, I'll follow suit. Does anyone know the best way to get rid of bats? I awoke this morning at 3:45 hearing whirring and flapping and a sort of squealing sound. Jolted myself a bit and hit something with the top of my nose/bottom of my forehead. I jumped out of the room and turned the light on. I never saw the bat. I turned the lights off in the hallway, hoping that it would go into the hall. I watched Conan O'Brien from 3:45 AM-4:30 in the living room, went upstairs to get my sleeping bag and camped out on the futon. I was too chicken to turn the lights out, though. So, even though I hid under the sleeping bag, I didn't get any more sleep.
Suggestions? I wasn't bit. Do I need to call a doctor?
Google is telling me that a purple wandering jew is going to require frequent water. If I have to water this thing more than once a week it is guaranteed to die.
You don't need to call a doctor if you weren't bit or scratched. During my last bat infestation I found that tennis rackets made pretty good weapons for bat-fighting (hand-to-hand combat). The problem never really went away until the landlord plugged some hole in the chimney where they were getting in.
BGirl -- last time we had a bat in the house we were not to our knowledge bit, but somebody in a position of authority (can't remember) advised us to get rabies shots anyway. FWIW
Philodendra are near unkillable. I'm nursing back to health one that I nearly killed twice, most recently by sticking it in a dark corner atop a kitchen cabinet next to a heating duct, stretching its vines out horizontally, and not watering it more than four times a year. It seems to be recovering a bit slower than I'd hoped, but I'm confident it'll be just fine in another couple of weeks of less harmful neglect.
I have always found spider plants to be not only un-killable, but also irrepressibly fertile.
BG, the bat question is not so much about the sole bat (it will find its way out), but how it came in. Likely it was just a one-off, and you'll never have one again. But if it has taken up residence in your eaves or there is a nice friendly little entry route somewhere, then you may see more. How long have you lived there?
Good luck running for the Senate 10 years from now if you kept "purple wandering jew" in your office. Didn't you stop to think how that would make people feel? Especially purple Jews?
I keep a Peace Lily growing out of a fishbowl at my office, where I don't want to maintain plants. It'll live indefinitely in water (as will pothos vines). You'll have to refill the fishbowl from time to time, but the plant won't die until it goes completely dry.
Brock, I'd guess that "direct filtered light" means "in a sunny window with partially closed blinds or a gauzy curtain" or "in a sunny spot with a tree overhead." I'd just put it in a mostly sunny window and move it a little further back from the window if it looked like it was wilting or blanching. I mean, you don't live in Arizona or something, do you?
I also have a houseplant problem, which is that I visited an arboritum this weekend and decided that I really want a coral bark Japanese maple tree. Maybe I can find a bonsai version.
I am a plant abuser. I forget them for months on end. I, however, have been unable to kill bamboo, which seems to thrive on being over-watered, then ignored for six months.
There are some really, really good fake plants out there these days, some with fake blemishes to add to the illusion. Should I ever have an office again, I will probably own one.
Plants: the dragon plant in my office wasn't watered all summer; I just gave it to my office neighbor. It's kinda like a little tree, which works if you want a biggish plant. Christmas cactus is pretty resiliant, and it actually blooms around November/December, which is kinda cool. Philodendrons are nice and will help clean the air in your office. Wandering jews, imho, get leggy and ugly, as do spider plants. Sanseveria, aka snake plant or mother-in-law's tongue (I didn't name it) is hardy and has tall straight stripey leaves; it can get about waist high and if you *do* take good care of it, it'll actually bloom with little honeysucklish sweet-smelling blooms. I only ever managed to do that once, though. All of those are pretty flexible w/r/t light, though if you want to control the timing of the cactus plant's bloom, keep it in a darkish place until you want it to bloom and then put it in light. Finally, of course, there's always the good ol' African violet. Kinda old-ladyish, and don't water it from the top or the leaves will rot (pour the water into the saucer--a deeper saucer = less watering), but they're small and cute on a desk.
Oh, I had advice re. bats, too. We've had 'em in our house on and off since we lived here. They can get in through teeensy cracks, so if you keep getting 'em, it's time to call the landlord Also, the local bat conservation society, so the landlord doesn't kill them, which is cheap and easy and illegal in a lot of places. Plus, even if it's not illegal, bats are nice.
*If* it bites or scratches you, there's a very remote chance it's carring rabies. People recommend that if one is in a room when you wake up, you either catch it (for them to kill and test) or get the rabies shot (which I think is a lot less awful than it used to be). That said, what are the odds? We never got shots. Sadly, the last bat we had did run into Mr. B's head and he was afraid it might have scratched him so he caught it and it had to be killed and tested. Negative. Poor bat.
It's not that hard to get them out of a room, though; after all, they have echolocation. Open a window and maybe use a blanket or towel to sort of guide it, ala a bullfight, towards the window and it'll fly right out. It's pretty unlikely to bang into you unless you're really darting around quickly.
I'm so glad to have stumbled into this thread -- I'm reminded of my own plant issue: for years, I have wanted a Larix occidentalis, and, against all advice, I going to try to plant one in my yard. I may be able to buy one later in the week -- I've got a short boondoggle on the schedule, and no respectable outfit 'round here will sell me one.
(Just for the record, I figured the best way to deal with the unpleasantness of mono was to get stinking drunk. I've reached drunk; stinking in T minus 60 minutes.)
As to my ancestry, well, the legitimacy of my vague Hispanisma really depends on what you do (or don't) consider legitimate in terms of Latino cultural identity. Which is a whole other thread.
Able to adapt to and endure lower light conditions and generally poor treatment, Ficus elastica is a winner indoors. Provide as much light as possible, keep away from cold and drafts in winter, keep soil lightly to moderately moist with good drainage.
(Mine started growing faster when I moved it from direct to indirect sunlight; it doesn't mind at all if it doesn't get water for months -- the leaves won't get brown or shriveled, it mostly just stops growing.)
Wait, you're really Mexican (sort of)? That was supposed to be a joke. Now I feel bad.
I don't generally assume people of unknown ethnicity are white. I just assumed you were, honestly I think b/c of the pic on your blog, which is probably not even you. Also, you've never mentioned being sort-of-Mexican before (that I'm aware of), whereas non-white people (in US culture, at least) tend to mention their ethnicity somewhere, sometime in the first 100,000 or so things you hear them say. And I'm pretty sure I've heard (read) you say at least that many things.
Teo: in what way does having a mexican grandfather and other relatives not fit your idea of hispanic?
in what way does having a mexican grandfather and other relatives not fit your idea of hispanic?
If the person in question has no other connections to Hispanic culture (not saying this is necessarily true of b), such as speaking Spanish, practicing Catholicism, etc., I don't think that amount of ancestry is sufficient to make the person Hispanic. But it's a controversial issue, and not everyone will agree.
I don't know if Teo knows anything about my ancestry, to be fair to him. I'm basically pretty anglo for most intents and purposes, but then, the whole problem of defining whiteness or not is difficult enough without dragging in the various permutations of whether Mexican-born anglos or US-born Latinos are "really" whatever-they-are, and do Chicanos count as Mexican, and is Pocho a dirty word, and what do you call a blonde haired chick whose relatives moved back and forth across a moving border for a couple hundred years, anyway?
And no, the pic on my blog isn't me or anyone I know; it's just a picture that I really liked.
I will say for the record though that I don't consider speaking Spanish or being Catholic necessary to Latino identity. I'm definitely down with the Chicanos on that one.
I don't understand what's controversial here: if a person speaks spanish better than they speak english, is catholic, and makes good corn tortillas, then he or she is Mexican. Otherwise, no. It's pretty simple really.
I don't actually consider them necessary either, truth be told. But it's kind of hard to express the sorts of things that would make me conclude that someone is Hispanic, and many of those things wouldn't be possible to discern in a non-face-to-face context anyway.
71: Jesus teo this isn't hard. If you make bad corn tortillas you are not mexican. If you are male and do not make corn tortillas, you can still be mexican as long as you come from a family of good corn-tortilla-makers. Got it?
"Lopez" was, in fact, my nickname for a while at the U of C.
I was hanging out with a bunch of people I didn't know (it was summer quarter, so everyone's social circle was disrupted) at a 'Mexican' restaurant called Steak Burrito, which had the blandest, most entirely spice-free food I'd ever tasted. I complained, and the guys I was with gave me a hard time about having an opinion about Mexican food given my apparent utter gringa-ness.
About five minutes later, one of them asked, "Hey, Liz, what's your last name?"
So, teo, my wife's mother was from Albuquerque. Family identified as Spanish, but father (my wife's grandfather) was half American Indian (Apache, they think, but no birth certificate; the Mormon sister tried). So I gather that if you mix Spanish and Native American south of the border, you get Mexican, but north of the border you get hyphenated. Is that about right?
Also, "Spanish" is what Hispanics in NM used as a self-description in English before the term "Hispanic" became widespread. And don't ever call a Hispanic person in NM "Mexican"; them's fightin' words.
Right, and Latino is the term lefty types use, while Chicano is a term from the 60s/70s left meaning American-born and not necessarily Spanish speaking, and Pocho is a derogatory term Mexicans use for same.
85: I gathered that, but have never been to NM and my wife's mother was gone long before I came on the scene. We've been wanting to make a trip up that way for years but I've never made it and the best my wife has done was a business trip.
86: And my wife is from the land where ethnic jokes are A-OK and is pretty much totally oblivious to mainland ethnic politics, so I figure it's probably best just to keep my head down if nomenclature ever comes up anywhere that it matters.
We'll make it eventually, just not sure when. Not enough vacation time and too many family-visit type commitments, not nearly enough time or money to visit all the places we'd like to go just for ourselves.
I was trying to find info on a modern-day Spanish-speaking ethnic group, which I learned about in a class on the Spanish Inquisition. They live somewhere in the Southwest and identify strongly with Spain, resent being lumped in with Latinos, and may be adventists but I can't remember. Instead, I found this link and remembered why it's safer just to stay here. There's crazies on them there internets:
I think we should hird squads of soliders to shoot illegals in our streets and throw their bodies back to Mexico aka cesspool la granda! Then shoot em as they try to cross into the US! Remember go after the communists first. The top commies are the ones with the big bumps on their noses!!!!!!!
New Mexico is a special place, actually and very much in their own minds. You may have heard the deadpan phrase "New Mexico Nationalism;" they aren't kidding.
My sister and her husband have moved down there, and my mother has too. I've known about New Mexico Spanish, through friends and the biographies of significant people: Estella Leopold, a figure in environmentalism in my youth and a near collaborator in her husband's development as a writer and thinker, was one of them. There's also that very interesting Murano angle. Now I'll get to sample that stuff first hand, as soon as I can pay them a visit.
Mexican - 1) term used to identify a citizen of the Republic of Mexico. 2) Derogatory term used to describe persons of partial Amerindian ancestry who speak Spanish or who have Sapnish-seapking ancestry.
Spanish - 1) European langauge which became dominant in areas of the Americas forcibly colonized by Spain. 2) Designation for a person who comes from Spain, or who is descended primarily from 'white' people from Spain who emigrated to the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
Latin-American - 1) term used to describe a person who comes from areas south of the American border; in colloquial use mixes together people of various ancestrial descent, including people of African descent and speakers of Portugese.
White - politicized garbage can designation used in the United States to refer to people with pale skin who are presumed to be entirely of WASP descent.
Hispanic - politicized garbage can designation for any person who is considered either 'not white' due to skin color, political inclinations or presumed ancestrial descent from Spanish ancestors. (See Spanish.)
83, 94: Obviously wasn't done right. Done properly, hyphenation can be life-changing, mind-expanding and/or consciousness-raising. (Careful with the slash, though, that's a whole different genre.)
There are Spanish-descended people in NM who claim to be crypto-Jews whose ancestors fled the Inquisition. A very controversial topic because some claim that the Adventists (Saturday worship) are somehow involved.
I really believe that neighborhood dominates descent. My Mexican-American nephew-in-law (native-born American, cousins born in Mexico) is a military lifer who owns a compete collection of John Wayne movies.He grew up in Texas and spent 20+ years on military bases. There are scattered Hispanics in my little Minnesota town, perhaps 5-10 families, and they're mostly "doing in Rome". Another town down the road has 10%+ Hispanic and they may retain some identity.
Apologies if this has been posted already, but 10ZenMonkeys has a pretty comprehensive Jason Fortuny information post, replete with links and everything. Highlights include having to sell his "stunning collection of original Star Wars and Transformers toys and action figures" to pay off debts, and his checklist of what would make the perfect woman (the final item: "50. She knows that A is A.").
95/97: Yeah, my understanding is that New Mexican Latinos are more conservative re. the whole Mexican/Hispanic/Latino thing, so no wonder Teo's dissing my heritage.
Teo, you colonized motherfucker, I'm reporting you to La Raza.
MESA, Ariz. (AP) -- A 22-year-old woman was arrested after authorities say she tried to hire someone to kill another woman whose photo appeared on her boyfriend's MySpace.com Web page.
Heather Michelle Kane was booked Tuesday for investigation of conspiracy to commit murder, Mesa Detective Jerry Gissel said.
She was arrested after she met an undercover Mesa police detective at a grocery store, gave the officer $400 and offered to pay an additional $100 once the woman had been killed, according to court records.
The records say Kane gave the undercover officer photographs taken from her boyfriend's social networking Web page of the woman she wanted killed. She also requested a photo of the woman's dead body.
It wasn't clear if the boyfriend and the targeted woman were romantically involved, Gissel said.
---$500???? That's, like, 1/4 of the rent on Boardwalk with a hotel.
I know plenty of nice, well-adjusted people that like Star Wars and have collections and just once it would be nice if the whackjobs on the Internet like Fortuny were wine connoisseurs instead.
114: My fancy-pants, amateur, arm-chair diagnosis is that he has exposed all his own darkest, deepest secrets on the interwebs and it's gotten him exactly jack and shit, and now he's turned to exposing others' secrets because he's run out of his own to show off. It's partly finding new hunting grounds and partly teh lulz and partly lashing out at an intertron that didn't give him whatever he hoped he'd find.
My non-fancy-pants diagnosis is that the guy's a cock. I am so sad I didn't think to email his picture to Ben Wolfson, with a very-oversized ruler photoshopped into it next to him so that he clocks in somewhere around 3".
Hhhmmm...my son has dark hair, brown eyes, can make tortillas [and a hell of a mole sauce], and speaks Spanish. He is not Catholic, however, which means he cannot qualify as a Mexican. Ah, well...
He did freak out the kitchen help when he cooked at Sundance a while back - Asian chef who spoke Spanish? Never seen before in the wilds of Utah.
Meaningless data point: one of the Tohajiilee clans (that's just west of Albuquerque) is called Mexican. It's not a figure of speech, but a historical artifact. Anyway, I know a shamanesque member of that clan, of whom the term "Catholic" would not be descriptive. His surname is Hispanic, as are all the Tohajiilee names I can think of.
I think the paper bag test, and the O Tannenbaum test, have been supplanted by more of an optional one drop test: one is permitted to identify with any ethnicity with which at least one great grandparent identified. Vaguely. One may recover heritage, and be more Hispanic, Japanese, Estonian, or Pikuni than one's assimilationist parents or grandparents.
According to this column, at least one person has told a columnist in the Seattle area that their personal information was falsely used in one of the responses Fortuny later posted as part of his "experiment."
On Monday I spoke with a man who said that his name, phone and e-mail had been posted without his knowledge.
The man said he never replied to the Craigslist sex ad, suggesting someone else -- a stranger? Fortuny? -- got hold of his personal information and used it against him.
Ay, there's the rub, etc. This is what fascinates me about his whole prank, actually: in an effort to make fun of people who assumedly mishandled personal information and strangers on the internet, he opens himself to the accusation that he has mishandled personal information and strangers on the internet. I find almost endless pleasure in running around and around the hamster-wheel of that idea. His whole they-wrongly-assumed-to-whom-they-wrote "experiment" is so transparently flipped around that I am dazzled.
136: The Naakaii Dine'e are actually present throughout the Navajo country (not just Tohajiilee). They may be more numerous in the eastern areas; Spanish surnames certainly are, but I don't know if there's a correlation. There are also clans named after some of the Pueblos, the Utes, and the Mescalero Apaches.
I slept on Paris' predecessor, Cleveland the couch, on many, many occasions during my undergrad career and the fact that I never caught crabs from it is almost enough to make me believe in God.
By '95, Cleveland (or part of it) had been banished to the computer room and I made many of my first acquaintances around the Hall by crashing on it after parties and introducing myself the next morning. Cleveland was, by that point, like something out of Ikea's Jackson Pollock collection.
White - politicized garbage can designation used in the United States to refer to people with pale skin who are presumed to be entirely of WASP descent.
Isn't the whiteness (or not) of Italians, in fact, part of the point? I think that various groups (Germans, Irish, Italians, and Chinese come to mind) have, historically, not "counted" as white and had to sue or argue or front public relations campaigns to become white, or whiteish, or to count as "white" for purposes of government statistics. It's a weird category.
Ben, are you smartassly implying that I misused the word "recursive" or something, or what?
I'd like to see a cite on the claim in the second link in 192 and some elaboration. I haven't read the book in the first link, but am inclined to be skeptical based on the whiteness stuff I've read. Clearly people were using racialized language to refer to European ethnic groups in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the question is whether you can jump from that to saying that members of these groups were not considered white at all.
I think it at least used to be the case that a lot of northern Italians didn't consider southern Italians, especially Sicilians, as white. Lots of jokes about the Moorish taint and stuff like that.
It's definitely an interesting question, and other people find the evidence more convincing than I do. I kind of like the term "provisional white" - for white, legally, in terms of things like naturalization, but not exactly white in terms of social and cultural acceptance by people who were considered unquestionably white - one historian came up with, but I don't think I ever finished his book.
The first couple of pages of the JSTOR link in 90 get into the problems courts have had with determining people's races. If interracial marriage is illegal, why not obtain an annulment by proving that you and your spouse are not the same race?
When I was an undergrad we had some Italian exchange students living opposite us. We invited them all out clubbing one night and one of them turned up, not kidding, wearing a red silk cravat and a blazer.
At the time we ought thought he was cheesy, but now, in retrospect, I can see he was just showing his solidarity with the oppressed Croatian people.
You totally should. But I should warn you that Silver City and Taos are at opposite ends of the state, and it's a big state, so "the whole bit" would be a big undertaking. Definitely worth it, though.
News? I think interpretation is your strong point on the topic.
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 11:45 AM
When you start pitying, can you do it for both of us? I'll be too busy giggling.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 11:54 AM
I forget. Have there been any famous internet-related murders?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 11:54 AM
Have there been any famous internet-related murders?
Well, there's Rachelle Waterman but, you know, it's just so sordid. All in all, I prefer this heart-warming internet-related fingers-and-toes amputation story. Love triumphs over all, baby. Except a 1600-mile hike in the dead of a Canadian winter. That beats love every time.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:03 PM
There was the German cannibal murder.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:07 PM
Not yet.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:11 PM
Leopold and Loeb
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:13 PM
Don't Objectivists dissolve in pity?
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:17 PM
6 forgot 7.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:24 PM
3: Do murders that people first discussed on their MySpace pages count? Jacob Robida's creepy Internet window is probably still archived somewhere, for example.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:26 PM
There was the the great Chinese online gaming murder.
Posted by Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:39 PM
Nobody remembers me.
Posted by Sarah | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:43 PM
Does anyone have a suggestion for a plant that is nice but thrives on minimal care? I've decided that I need a plant in my office, but I absolutely will not under any circumstances put in the effort to take good care of it.
My default is to go with a big cactus, since I know they're hearty, but I'd prefer something leafier. It will have plenty of sunlight.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:57 PM
I should say: I know next to nothing about plants. Everything I know about plants I learned from smoking dope.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:58 PM
I recommend a rubber tree, but keep it out of direct sun.
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 12:59 PM
Purple wandering jew. They're damn near impossible to kill and you can get them anywhere.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:02 PM
A rubber tree?
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:03 PM
Well, if Brock is going to derail this thread, I'll follow suit. Does anyone know the best way to get rid of bats? I awoke this morning at 3:45 hearing whirring and flapping and a sort of squealing sound. Jolted myself a bit and hit something with the top of my nose/bottom of my forehead. I jumped out of the room and turned the light on. I never saw the bat. I turned the lights off in the hallway, hoping that it would go into the hall. I watched Conan O'Brien from 3:45 AM-4:30 in the living room, went upstairs to get my sleeping bag and camped out on the futon. I was too chicken to turn the lights out, though. So, even though I hid under the sleeping bag, I didn't get any more sleep.
Suggestions? I wasn't bit. Do I need to call a doctor?
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:06 PM
Google is telling me that a purple wandering jew is going to require frequent water. If I have to water this thing more than once a week it is guaranteed to die.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:07 PM
You don't need to call a doctor if you weren't bit or scratched. During my last bat infestation I found that tennis rackets made pretty good weapons for bat-fighting (hand-to-hand combat). The problem never really went away until the landlord plugged some hole in the chimney where they were getting in.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:10 PM
13: Pothos plants are resilient if a bit boring.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:14 PM
18: Apparently there's a whole site devoted to bat management. Perhaps they'll have some useful tips.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:16 PM
5: That German cannibal murder story seriously freaks me out. [shudder]
I have no luck with Pothos plants -- they always die within a week. Spider plants are pretty easy.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:17 PM
A rubber chicken would also be good for the office. You can get one from Teofilo.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:20 PM
BGirl -- last time we had a bat in the house we were not to our knowledge bit, but somebody in a position of authority (can't remember) advised us to get rabies shots anyway. FWIW
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:22 PM
Rabies shots are not fun AT ALL. I would not recommend getting them just for shits and giggles. Of course, IANAMD.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:24 PM
26: Rabies shots aren't as bad as they used to be.. it's now six shots, in the arm, over 30 days. Or is that what you were talking about?
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:29 PM
Really? I had to get a course of shots in the stomach, and it sucked.
I guess we should be posting this on the "unrelenting advance of medical technology" thread...
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:35 PM
Bah. "Medical technology marches onward." Whatever.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:36 PM
Yeah I wanted to ignore the authority figure's advice too but was overruled by my more cautious half. Isn't that always how it goes...
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:37 PM
But we got the series neil is talkin bout.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:37 PM
Philodendra are near unkillable. I'm nursing back to health one that I nearly killed twice, most recently by sticking it in a dark corner atop a kitchen cabinet next to a heating duct, stretching its vines out horizontally, and not watering it more than four times a year. It seems to be recovering a bit slower than I'd hoped, but I'm confident it'll be just fine in another couple of weeks of less harmful neglect.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 1:50 PM
I have always found spider plants to be not only un-killable, but also irrepressibly fertile.
BG, the bat question is not so much about the sole bat (it will find its way out), but how it came in. Likely it was just a one-off, and you'll never have one again. But if it has taken up residence in your eaves or there is a nice friendly little entry route somewhere, then you may see more. How long have you lived there?
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 2:00 PM
I've lived here for almost 2 years. My crazy housemate has been here for more like 20.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 2:04 PM
Good luck running for the Senate 10 years from now if you kept "purple wandering jew" in your office. Didn't you stop to think how that would make people feel? Especially purple Jews?
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 2:05 PM
"6 forgot 7."
Is this related to that joke about 7, 8, 9?
Posted by will | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 2:10 PM
I keep a Peace Lily growing out of a fishbowl at my office, where I don't want to maintain plants. It'll live indefinitely in water (as will pothos vines). You'll have to refill the fishbowl from time to time, but the plant won't die until it goes completely dry.
Posted by Megan | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 2:51 PM
Does "place in direct filtered light but not direct sun" mean placed in a bright window but not outside? If not, what does "filtered light" mean?
Thanks for all the tips, people.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 2:59 PM
Brock, I'd guess that "direct filtered light" means "in a sunny window with partially closed blinds or a gauzy curtain" or "in a sunny spot with a tree overhead." I'd just put it in a mostly sunny window and move it a little further back from the window if it looked like it was wilting or blanching. I mean, you don't live in Arizona or something, do you?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 3:06 PM
I also have a houseplant problem, which is that I visited an arboritum this weekend and decided that I really want a coral bark Japanese maple tree. Maybe I can find a bonsai version.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 3:17 PM
I am a plant abuser. I forget them for months on end. I, however, have been unable to kill bamboo, which seems to thrive on being over-watered, then ignored for six months.
There are some really, really good fake plants out there these days, some with fake blemishes to add to the illusion. Should I ever have an office again, I will probably own one.
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 3:19 PM
Plants: the dragon plant in my office wasn't watered all summer; I just gave it to my office neighbor. It's kinda like a little tree, which works if you want a biggish plant. Christmas cactus is pretty resiliant, and it actually blooms around November/December, which is kinda cool. Philodendrons are nice and will help clean the air in your office. Wandering jews, imho, get leggy and ugly, as do spider plants. Sanseveria, aka snake plant or mother-in-law's tongue (I didn't name it) is hardy and has tall straight stripey leaves; it can get about waist high and if you *do* take good care of it, it'll actually bloom with little honeysucklish sweet-smelling blooms. I only ever managed to do that once, though. All of those are pretty flexible w/r/t light, though if you want to control the timing of the cactus plant's bloom, keep it in a darkish place until you want it to bloom and then put it in light. Finally, of course, there's always the good ol' African violet. Kinda old-ladyish, and don't water it from the top or the leaves will rot (pour the water into the saucer--a deeper saucer = less watering), but they're small and cute on a desk.
Or, you know, there's always fake.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 3:36 PM
Oh, I had advice re. bats, too. We've had 'em in our house on and off since we lived here. They can get in through teeensy cracks, so if you keep getting 'em, it's time to call the landlord Also, the local bat conservation society, so the landlord doesn't kill them, which is cheap and easy and illegal in a lot of places. Plus, even if it's not illegal, bats are nice.
*If* it bites or scratches you, there's a very remote chance it's carring rabies. People recommend that if one is in a room when you wake up, you either catch it (for them to kill and test) or get the rabies shot (which I think is a lot less awful than it used to be). That said, what are the odds? We never got shots. Sadly, the last bat we had did run into Mr. B's head and he was afraid it might have scratched him so he caught it and it had to be killed and tested. Negative. Poor bat.
It's not that hard to get them out of a room, though; after all, they have echolocation. Open a window and maybe use a blanket or towel to sort of guide it, ala a bullfight, towards the window and it'll fly right out. It's pretty unlikely to bang into you unless you're really darting around quickly.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 3:39 PM
I'm so glad to have stumbled into this thread -- I'm reminded of my own plant issue: for years, I have wanted a Larix occidentalis, and, against all advice, I going to try to plant one in my yard. I may be able to buy one later in the week -- I've got a short boondoggle on the schedule, and no respectable outfit 'round here will sell me one.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 3:47 PM
Wandering jews, imho, get leggy and ugly
Hey!
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 3:49 PM
45 s/b
"Oh yeah, well imho vaguely Hispanic professors in unidentified fields in the humanities get sour and wrinkly”
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 4:10 PM
"Vaguely Hispanic" isn't how I'd describe b, but then I've never met her.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 4:27 PM
I figure if your heaping abuse on someone, you don't need to be too precise.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 4:36 PM
What's that about my heaping abuse?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 4:59 PM
(Just for the record, I figured the best way to deal with the unpleasantness of mono was to get stinking drunk. I've reached drunk; stinking in T minus 60 minutes.)
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 5:00 PM
45: The *plant*.
As to my ancestry, well, the legitimacy of my vague Hispanisma really depends on what you do (or don't) consider legitimate in terms of Latino cultural identity. Which is a whole other thread.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 5:55 PM
I'm pretty sure b doesn't fit my default definition of "Hispanic," but like she says it's a huge, contentious issue.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 5:59 PM
At least I dress up when I go out for the evening. You white people think it's just fine to show up in your fleece and jeans. Goddamn hippies.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 6:23 PM
B's Mexican too?! Well I'll be damned.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:06 PM
I'm not Mexican, but my grandfather and assorted more distant ancestors were. The question Teo and I aren't really debating is whether that counts.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:10 PM
Shit, I just passed up a good opportunity to harass Brock about his racist presumption that people of unknown ethnicity are white.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:11 PM
Able to adapt to and endure lower light conditions and generally poor treatment, Ficus elastica is a winner indoors. Provide as much light as possible, keep away from cold and drafts in winter, keep soil lightly to moderately moist with good drainage.
(Mine started growing faster when I moved it from direct to indirect sunlight; it doesn't mind at all if it doesn't get water for months -- the leaves won't get brown or shriveled, it mostly just stops growing.)
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:12 PM
Rubbers don't grow on trees, neil. Sheesh.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:14 PM
Wait, you're really Mexican (sort of)? That was supposed to be a joke. Now I feel bad.
I don't generally assume people of unknown ethnicity are white. I just assumed you were, honestly I think b/c of the pic on your blog, which is probably not even you. Also, you've never mentioned being sort-of-Mexican before (that I'm aware of), whereas non-white people (in US culture, at least) tend to mention their ethnicity somewhere, sometime in the first 100,000 or so things you hear them say. And I'm pretty sure I've heard (read) you say at least that many things.
Teo: in what way does having a mexican grandfather and other relatives not fit your idea of hispanic?
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:22 PM
58, see 17.
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:26 PM
in what way does having a mexican grandfather and other relatives not fit your idea of hispanic?
If the person in question has no other connections to Hispanic culture (not saying this is necessarily true of b), such as speaking Spanish, practicing Catholicism, etc., I don't think that amount of ancestry is sufficient to make the person Hispanic. But it's a controversial issue, and not everyone will agree.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:30 PM
60: Well, shyooooooot....
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:30 PM
I don't know if Teo knows anything about my ancestry, to be fair to him. I'm basically pretty anglo for most intents and purposes, but then, the whole problem of defining whiteness or not is difficult enough without dragging in the various permutations of whether Mexican-born anglos or US-born Latinos are "really" whatever-they-are, and do Chicanos count as Mexican, and is Pocho a dirty word, and what do you call a blonde haired chick whose relatives moved back and forth across a moving border for a couple hundred years, anyway?
And no, the pic on my blog isn't me or anyone I know; it's just a picture that I really liked.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:32 PM
I will say for the record though that I don't consider speaking Spanish or being Catholic necessary to Latino identity. I'm definitely down with the Chicanos on that one.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:35 PM
b, I think you've also mentioned being blonde and blue-eyed and having Scandinavianish features lately, so Brock might have been relying on that.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:36 PM
I don't understand what's controversial here: if a person speaks spanish better than they speak english, is catholic, and makes good corn tortillas, then he or she is Mexican. Otherwise, no. It's pretty simple really.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:37 PM
I don't actually consider them necessary either, truth be told. But it's kind of hard to express the sorts of things that would make me conclude that someone is Hispanic, and many of those things wouldn't be possible to discern in a non-face-to-face context anyway.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:38 PM
That's not supposed to reflect in any way on the question of Latino identity, just trying to be a witness for Brock's defense.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:38 PM
64- you are wrong on both counts.
65 - yes, I thought I remembered that, but I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:38 PM
65: Yeah, my ancestors are a mixed breed.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:38 PM
66: What about someone who makes bad corn tortillas? Or, being male, doesn't make corn tortillas at all? Etc.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:39 PM
Brown hair and eyes shoudl be added to the list in 66.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:39 PM
I can make tortillas, though.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:40 PM
71: Jesus teo this isn't hard. If you make bad corn tortillas you are not mexican. If you are male and do not make corn tortillas, you can still be mexican as long as you come from a family of good corn-tortilla-makers. Got it?
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:41 PM
So Mexicanness, like Jewishness, comes down through the female line.
That works. My family goes back to the American Revolution via a woman named Lopez. Who I'm sure could make tortillas.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:44 PM
"Lopez" was, in fact, my nickname for a while at the U of C.
I was hanging out with a bunch of people I didn't know (it was summer quarter, so everyone's social circle was disrupted) at a 'Mexican' restaurant called Steak Burrito, which had the blandest, most entirely spice-free food I'd ever tasted. I complained, and the guys I was with gave me a hard time about having an opinion about Mexican food given my apparent utter gringa-ness.
About five minutes later, one of them asked, "Hey, Liz, what's your last name?"
"Lopez," I said. And it stuck for a while.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:53 PM
I must be tired. Rereading that, I sound drunk.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:57 PM
That's an awesome story.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 7:57 PM
Doesn't "vaguely Hispanic" suddenly seem like a good descriptor now?
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 8:49 PM
Yup.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 8:51 PM
Sure, it works. It's just not the one that would have leapt first to my mind is all.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 8:54 PM
So, teo, my wife's mother was from Albuquerque. Family identified as Spanish, but father (my wife's grandfather) was half American Indian (Apache, they think, but no birth certificate; the Mormon sister tried). So I gather that if you mix Spanish and Native American south of the border, you get Mexican, but north of the border you get hyphenated. Is that about right?
My son still looks awfully damn haole.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:04 PM
you get hyphenated
That happened to me once. It was very uncomfortable.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:09 PM
Is that about right?
Pretty much. There's some more complicated stuff too,, but that's the gist of it.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:12 PM
Also, "Spanish" is what Hispanics in NM used as a self-description in English before the term "Hispanic" became widespread. And don't ever call a Hispanic person in NM "Mexican"; them's fightin' words.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:14 PM
Right, and Latino is the term lefty types use, while Chicano is a term from the 60s/70s left meaning American-born and not necessarily Spanish speaking, and Pocho is a derogatory term Mexicans use for same.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:20 PM
If you can get into JSTOR, I recommend this article.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:21 PM
85: I gathered that, but have never been to NM and my wife's mother was gone long before I came on the scene. We've been wanting to make a trip up that way for years but I've never made it and the best my wife has done was a business trip.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:21 PM
And none of the terms in 86 are used in NM at all.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:22 PM
correct link, I hope
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:22 PM
86: And my wife is from the land where ethnic jokes are A-OK and is pretty much totally oblivious to mainland ethnic politics, so I figure it's probably best just to keep my head down if nomenclature ever comes up anywhere that it matters.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:23 PM
88: If you can make it, you really should go. It's a remarkable place.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:24 PM
We'll make it eventually, just not sure when. Not enough vacation time and too many family-visit type commitments, not nearly enough time or money to visit all the places we'd like to go just for ourselves.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:32 PM
[Still trying to come up with an appropriate response to 83]
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:34 PM
I was trying to find info on a modern-day Spanish-speaking ethnic group, which I learned about in a class on the Spanish Inquisition. They live somewhere in the Southwest and identify strongly with Spain, resent being lumped in with Latinos, and may be adventists but I can't remember. Instead, I found this link and remembered why it's safer just to stay here. There's crazies on them there internets:
Ack.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:34 PM
New Mexico is a special place, actually and very much in their own minds. You may have heard the deadpan phrase "New Mexico Nationalism;" they aren't kidding.
My sister and her husband have moved down there, and my mother has too. I've known about New Mexico Spanish, through friends and the biographies of significant people: Estella Leopold, a figure in environmentalism in my youth and a near collaborator in her husband's development as a writer and thinker, was one of them. There's also that very interesting Murano angle. Now I'll get to sample that stuff first hand, as soon as I can pay them a visit.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:35 PM
Stanley, your description fits NM Hispanics to a tee (except the Adventist part; there are some, but they're mostly Catholic).
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:36 PM
Mexican - 1) term used to identify a citizen of the Republic of Mexico. 2) Derogatory term used to describe persons of partial Amerindian ancestry who speak Spanish or who have Sapnish-seapking ancestry.
Spanish - 1) European langauge which became dominant in areas of the Americas forcibly colonized by Spain. 2) Designation for a person who comes from Spain, or who is descended primarily from 'white' people from Spain who emigrated to the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
Latin-American - 1) term used to describe a person who comes from areas south of the American border; in colloquial use mixes together people of various ancestrial descent, including people of African descent and speakers of Portugese.
White - politicized garbage can designation used in the United States to refer to people with pale skin who are presumed to be entirely of WASP descent.
Hispanic - politicized garbage can designation for any person who is considered either 'not white' due to skin color, political inclinations or presumed ancestrial descent from Spanish ancestors. (See Spanish.)
max
['Hrmmm.']
Posted by max | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:37 PM
IDP: Where in NM do your relatives live?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:38 PM
¡Cien!
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:41 PM
First!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:41 PM
Rats.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:42 PM
¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:43 PM
Payback's a bitch, eh, apo?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:44 PM
The kids on the lawn win again! (103, soy yo)
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 9:46 PM
Payback's a bitch, eh, apo?
Yes. Payback and chickens.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 10:24 PM
36 - See also.
Posted by Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 09-13-06 11:27 PM
83, 94: Obviously wasn't done right. Done properly, hyphenation can be life-changing, mind-expanding and/or consciousness-raising. (Careful with the slash, though, that's a whole different genre.)
Posted by Doug | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 3:25 AM
There are Spanish-descended people in NM who claim to be crypto-Jews whose ancestors fled the Inquisition. A very controversial topic because some claim that the Adventists (Saturday worship) are somehow involved.
I really believe that neighborhood dominates descent. My Mexican-American nephew-in-law (native-born American, cousins born in Mexico) is a military lifer who owns a compete collection of John Wayne movies.He grew up in Texas and spent 20+ years on military bases. There are scattered Hispanics in my little Minnesota town, perhaps 5-10 families, and they're mostly "doing in Rome". Another town down the road has 10%+ Hispanic and they may retain some identity.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:17 AM
#109: I really believe that neighborhood dominates descent.
Oh, absolutely.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:24 AM
Apologies if this has been posted already, but 10ZenMonkeys has a pretty comprehensive Jason Fortuny information post, replete with links and everything. Highlights include having to sell his "stunning collection of original Star Wars and Transformers toys and action figures" to pay off debts, and his checklist of what would make the perfect woman (the final item: "50. She knows that A is A.").
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 9:37 AM
95/97: Yeah, my understanding is that New Mexican Latinos are more conservative re. the whole Mexican/Hispanic/Latino thing, so no wonder Teo's dissing my heritage.
Teo, you colonized motherfucker, I'm reporting you to La Raza.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:01 AM
having to sell his "stunning collection of original Star Wars and Transformers toys and action figures"
That was a scene from The 40-Year-Old Virgin, wasn't it? Christ, I almost am beginning to pity him.
Ugh, and the molestation by his grandfather. That's horrible. I promise never to think about him ever again.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:14 AM
Oh my god, he wants to be killed! That explains it all. He does these things to goad someone into killing him.
That is my professional diagnosis, which is not even based on reading his livejournal.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:22 PM
So stop me if you've heard this one:
MESA, Ariz. (AP) -- A 22-year-old woman was arrested after authorities say she tried to hire someone to kill another woman whose photo appeared on her boyfriend's MySpace.com Web page.
Heather Michelle Kane was booked Tuesday for investigation of conspiracy to commit murder, Mesa Detective Jerry Gissel said.
She was arrested after she met an undercover Mesa police detective at a grocery store, gave the officer $400 and offered to pay an additional $100 once the woman had been killed, according to court records.
The records say Kane gave the undercover officer photographs taken from her boyfriend's social networking Web page of the woman she wanted killed. She also requested a photo of the woman's dead body.
It wasn't clear if the boyfriend and the targeted woman were romantically involved, Gissel said.
---$500???? That's, like, 1/4 of the rent on Boardwalk with a hotel.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:27 PM
I know plenty of nice, well-adjusted people that like Star Wars and have collections and just once it would be nice if the whackjobs on the Internet like Fortuny were wine connoisseurs instead.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:33 PM
Really Cala? Plenty? I might believe one or two, but... plenty?
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:39 PM
116: Cala, meet Apostropher.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:41 PM
116: Amen.
114: My fancy-pants, amateur, arm-chair diagnosis is that he has exposed all his own darkest, deepest secrets on the interwebs and it's gotten him exactly jack and shit, and now he's turned to exposing others' secrets because he's run out of his own to show off. It's partly finding new hunting grounds and partly teh lulz and partly lashing out at an intertron that didn't give him whatever he hoped he'd find.
My non-fancy-pants diagnosis is that the guy's a cock. I am so sad I didn't think to email his picture to Ben Wolfson, with a very-oversized ruler photoshopped into it next to him so that he clocks in somewhere around 3".
For some reason I cannot get enough of this guy.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:43 PM
he clocks in somewhere around 3".
For some reason I cannot get enough of this guy.
I think the first sentence probably gives you the reason for the second.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:45 PM
Robust, you and I should start some kind of support group.
But before we go cold turkey, have you seen the last page of comments on RFJason's last post? Things are getting a little vicious.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:46 PM
118: I am indeed a whackjob on the Internet, but I am not a whackjob on the Internet like Fortuny.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:47 PM
122 -- yeah true. I guess my granularity was a little too coarse.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:50 PM
Cala, if you have a star wars collection I will fall out of love with you.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:50 PM
Cala, if you have a star wars collection I will fall out of love with you.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:53 PM
But before we go cold turkey
Look, I can stop anytime, OK? No, that's not LiveJournal in my other tab! Get away!
I think the first sentence probably gives you the reason for the second.
Well, I certainly left myself open on that one.
Cough.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:54 PM
Cala: I know plenty of nice, well-adjusted people that like Star Wars and have collections
Robust: Amen.
No, no Robust, she was talking about well adjusted people, not you.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:58 PM
Seriously, I should shoot him myself; then I could get some work done.*
*This is a joke-- I'd find some other way to waste time.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 12:59 PM
Cala likes the guys with the big ol' lightsabers, Labs, so you were SOL in any case.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 1:09 PM
That takes care of this.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 1:12 PM
Hhhmmm...my son has dark hair, brown eyes, can make tortillas [and a hell of a mole sauce], and speaks Spanish. He is not Catholic, however, which means he cannot qualify as a Mexican. Ah, well...
He did freak out the kitchen help when he cooked at Sundance a while back - Asian chef who spoke Spanish? Never seen before in the wilds of Utah.
Posted by DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 1:38 PM
Cala, how would you like to see my Walrusman?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 1:40 PM
Ugh, the more I find out about rfjason, the more boring he is.
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 1:42 PM
[and a hell of a mole sauce]
"No, really, this stuff is great on subterranean rodents."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 1:48 PM
134: Oppressor!
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 1:49 PM
Meaningless data point: one of the Tohajiilee clans (that's just west of Albuquerque) is called Mexican. It's not a figure of speech, but a historical artifact. Anyway, I know a shamanesque member of that clan, of whom the term "Catholic" would not be descriptive. His surname is Hispanic, as are all the Tohajiilee names I can think of.
I think the paper bag test, and the O Tannenbaum test, have been supplanted by more of an optional one drop test: one is permitted to identify with any ethnicity with which at least one great grandparent identified. Vaguely. One may recover heritage, and be more Hispanic, Japanese, Estonian, or Pikuni than one's assimilationist parents or grandparents.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 2:23 PM
According to this column, at least one person has told a columnist in the Seattle area that their personal information was falsely used in one of the responses Fortuny later posted as part of his "experiment."
On Monday I spoke with a man who said that his name, phone and e-mail had been posted without his knowledge.
The man said he never replied to the Craigslist sex ad, suggesting someone else -- a stranger? Fortuny? -- got hold of his personal information and used it against him.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 2:46 PM
137 -- I have no idea why that charge for a movie is on my hotel bill. Must be a computer glitch.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 2:53 PM
Oh, I don't have anything riding on the authenticity of the claim he never replied. I just find it amusing.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 2:59 PM
137/138- seriously. I expect similar denials from everyone whose reply didn't have a picture attached. (An identifiable picture...)
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 2:59 PM
Ay, there's the rub, etc. This is what fascinates me about his whole prank, actually: in an effort to make fun of people who assumedly mishandled personal information and strangers on the internet, he opens himself to the accusation that he has mishandled personal information and strangers on the internet. I find almost endless pleasure in running around and around the hamster-wheel of that idea. His whole they-wrongly-assumed-to-whom-they-wrote "experiment" is so transparently flipped around that I am dazzled.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 3:10 PM
141: I've been savoring the idea that he has, in ridiculing the people who responded, rejected every plea he might make on his own behalf.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 3:17 PM
112: "Colonized"?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 3:46 PM
I believe it's a Rufus Wainwright reference.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 3:50 PM
136: The Naakaii Dine'e are actually present throughout the Navajo country (not just Tohajiilee). They may be more numerous in the eastern areas; Spanish surnames certainly are, but I don't know if there's a correlation. There are also clans named after some of the Pueblos, the Utes, and the Mescalero Apaches.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 3:51 PM
143: You know, that whole thing where the colonized internalizes the superiority of the colonizer and learns to despise his own mongrel nature.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:21 PM
Yes, but what does that have to do with me?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:23 PM
What's your man got to do with me?
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:26 PM
You're from New Mexico, New Mexicans are all wanna-be Spanish, hence crappy vaguely latino type people like me don't count. Keep up, here.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:27 PM
Your statements all apply to New Mexico Hispanics, b. Keep up, here.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:29 PM
Yeah, well, you're from there, I'm sure you've picked up the attitude.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:30 PM
Perhaps, but I am far more colonizer than colonized.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:32 PM
Yeah, one of them New-fangled Mexicans.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:32 PM
Teo can pass.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:35 PM
Wait, theres a *New* Mexico, now?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:37 PM
I am far more colonizer than colonized.
QED.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:39 PM
Well, yeah. What'd you expect?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 6:41 PM
Wait, theres a *New* Mexico, now?
Cleaner than regular Mexico.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 7:01 PM
144: What's a Rufus Wainwright reference?
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 7:36 PM
I have a friend who caught crabs from Rufus Wainwright, which is a form of colonization, but I don't remember if I ever mentioned that here.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 7:47 PM
Gay in-jokes, mostly.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 7:47 PM
159: it's when you refer to something Rufus Wainwright did or said.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 7:49 PM
160 is a completely non-fictional Rufus Wainwright reference.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 7:51 PM
We sure are rocking the structural ambiguity lately.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 7:52 PM
160: Wait, wait, wait. Does this mean I'm in hell with Rufus Wainwright?
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:08 PM
Seems unlikely. You arrived at the Hall well after this guy departed.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:11 PM
But Loudon Wainwright is a Xi from the '60s.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:13 PM
162: Don't you make me come over there.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:13 PM
Normally I'd be all "darn!" but, y'know, crabs.
You know, a couch gave someone crabs when I was an undergrad. That person was not me.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:13 PM
Paris the couch?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:15 PM
167: Awesome!
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:15 PM
170: Yes, as a matter of fact. Stylish and dangerous.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:16 PM
I slept on Paris' predecessor, Cleveland the couch, on many, many occasions during my undergrad career and the fact that I never caught crabs from it is almost enough to make me believe in God.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:19 PM
By '95, Cleveland (or part of it) had been banished to the computer room and I made many of my first acquaintances around the Hall by crashing on it after parties and introducing myself the next morning. Cleveland was, by that point, like something out of Ikea's Jackson Pollock collection.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:26 PM
Infested furniture always produces such fond memories.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:26 PM
White - politicized garbage can designation used in the United States to refer to people with pale skin who are presumed to be entirely of WASP descent.
Ah, the joys of recursive definitions...
Posted by Anarch | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:53 PM
In fact, it's true that "white" is a recursive category. That's not Max's fault.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 8:55 PM
Reference?
Posted by standpipe b | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 9:12 PM
Robust, did you notice that RFJason's livejournal has been losing comments?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 9:13 PM
"White=White"
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 9:21 PM
Whiteness = lacking ethnicity. If that ain't recursive, I don't know what is.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 9:35 PM
Speaking as a white person, I can confirm that whiteness is recursive. You ethnics will just have to take my word for it.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 9:55 PM
Whiteness = lacking ethnicity. If that ain't recursive, I don't know what is.
All together now...
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 9:56 PM
What about white ethnics?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:03 PM
Does this mean Italians aren't white?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:06 PM
Italians who are Italians aren't white. Italians who are white aren't Italian. A=A.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:09 PM
And don't even get me started on Croats.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:10 PM
The 1790 naturalization law restricted naturalization as American citizens to whites. Italians were naturalized. Italians were white.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:12 PM
And still are.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:13 PM
Isn't the whiteness (or not) of Italians, in fact, part of the point? I think that various groups (Germans, Irish, Italians, and Chinese come to mind) have, historically, not "counted" as white and had to sue or argue or front public relations campaigns to become white, or whiteish, or to count as "white" for purposes of government statistics. It's a weird category.
Ben, are you smartassly implying that I misused the word "recursive" or something, or what?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:14 PM
There are all kinds of problems with "whiteness studies."
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:16 PM
The whiteness of Italians has in fact been in question for a long time.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:17 PM
Okay, then forget I said anything.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:17 PM
193 to 191.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:18 PM
I bought something labelled "Italian Bread" once. It was white.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:19 PM
When you bring a Croat
Fresh off the boat
You can tell him lies so that
He thinks it all rhymes.
--Italian nursery rhyme
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:23 PM
I'd like to see a cite on the claim in the second link in 192 and some elaboration. I haven't read the book in the first link, but am inclined to be skeptical based on the whiteness stuff I've read. Clearly people were using racialized language to refer to European ethnic groups in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the question is whether you can jump from that to saying that members of these groups were not considered white at all.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:27 PM
Hey, you're the historian. I don't actually know much about this.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:28 PM
I think it at least used to be the case that a lot of northern Italians didn't consider southern Italians, especially Sicilians, as white. Lots of jokes about the Moorish taint and stuff like that.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:35 PM
It's definitely an interesting question, and other people find the evidence more convincing than I do. I kind of like the term "provisional white" - for white, legally, in terms of things like naturalization, but not exactly white in terms of social and cultural acceptance by people who were considered unquestionably white - one historian came up with, but I don't think I ever finished his book.
The first couple of pages of the JSTOR link in 90 get into the problems courts have had with determining people's races. If interracial marriage is illegal, why not obtain an annulment by proving that you and your spouse are not the same race?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:35 PM
Have you seen this book, eb? It has some interesting stuff on this issue.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:37 PM
No, I haven't seen it.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:41 PM
It's pretty good.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:50 PM
Yeah?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 10:57 PM
Yeah.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-14-06 11:00 PM
I have insomnia so I check in here, and what do I find? People hatin' on the Croatians. They gave us the cravat, for fuck's sake; show some respect.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 12:29 AM
Yeah, Poles, too. We demand respect!
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 12:39 AM
They gave us the cravat
Never gave me one. I'm just saying, until my cravat shows up, I feel free to continue Croat hating.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 6:40 AM
They gave us the cravat. It just hasn't been your turn to wear it yet.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 7:53 AM
I remember my turn--it was great.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 8:05 AM
It is a -- MOST -- PROVOKING -- thing when a person doesn't know a cravat from a belt!
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 8:29 AM
One, two, buckle my cravat.
Posted by standpipe b | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 8:44 AM
When I was an undergrad we had some Italian exchange students living opposite us. We invited them all out clubbing one night and one of them turned up, not kidding, wearing a red silk cravat and a blazer.
At the time we ought thought he was cheesy, but now, in retrospect, I can see he was just showing his solidarity with the oppressed Croatian people.
Posted by nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 8:54 AM
Cravat was the gremlin on the wing that freaked out William Shatner.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 8:55 AM
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (the whole darn thing).
Posted by standpipe b | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 9:08 AM
Cravat was the name of that gremlin? Oh dear, it's all coming together.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 10:23 AM
179: No way! You've got the eagle eyes; I had missed that entirely.
Is it possible he's editing out comments he doesn't like, perhaps ones that contain further of his personal information? Noes!
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 10:33 AM
I laughed out loud at 162.
Whiteness vel non of italians is of course a classic Unfogged topic.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 10:38 AM
216: The name of the actor.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 10:39 AM
I'm lazy about clicking through. It comes back to bite me in the ass.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 10:47 AM
I don't know if moving from driving William Shatner crazy on a plane to biting you in the ass is a step up or a step down for Cravat.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 10:52 AM
Teo asked me way upthread where my relatives live: Silver City.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 10:58 AM
biting you in the ass
Does it pay scale?
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 11:04 AM
222: Never been there. I hear it's nice.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 1:10 PM
I've never been there either, nor anywhere else in that state. I'd like to see it, see the mesas, do a Lawrence pilgrimage, the whole bit.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 1:14 PM
You totally should. But I should warn you that Silver City and Taos are at opposite ends of the state, and it's a big state, so "the whole bit" would be a big undertaking. Definitely worth it, though.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-15-06 1:22 PM