Have Jammies wheel you into an aisle enclosed in a sound-proofed transparent box.
For reals, though: is the issue you very much want to go, but don't know what to do with Hokey Pokey? Because I'm not sure I would expect someone who had a kid a month ago to show? I'm really just making this up as I go along, but that part seems reasonable.
Realistically, though, are you gonna be able to leave HoPo with a babysitter in the lobby, and not constantly be checking on the kid anyway? And/or is it a big enough place where you wouldn't be able to hear a fussy kid from the lobby?
Dona sounds about right. I wouldn't take him in, and the easy solution is to skip the play if you're not ready to leave him home.
It depends. How many seats are you going to reserve?
More seriously, have you asked the friend? How big a theatre is it, and how formal a production?
For reals, though: is the issue you very much want to go, but don't know what to do with Hokey Pokey?
Yeah, pretty much. She's in from out of town, and other family is also coming in to watch the play.
Realistically, though, are you gonna be able to leave HoPo with a babysitter in the lobby, and not constantly be checking on the kid anyway?
Depends. He goes to daycare on Monday, so I think I'll be fine, anxiety-wise. But wondering if he needs to nurse and trying to stay on top of that issue when he's out of sight requires some vigilance.
And/or is it a big enough place where you wouldn't be able to hear a fussy kid from the lobby?
Definitely a real concern. There may not even be a lobby.
I'm not sure I understand how "He goes to daycare on Monday, so I think I'll be fine, anxiety-wise" and "I'm not ready to leave Hokey Pokey with a baby-sitter" are compatible statements.
Unless this play is a very long way away from your house, maybe?
He goes to daycare on Monday
Then I don't understand your hesitance about getting a sitter.
I trust daycare with very young babies, because I've known the carers in that room for a long time. We've got relationships with two babysitters, but I haven't left a baby this young home with either of them before. I suppose I could. But.
Unless this play is a very long way away from your house, maybe?
It's about 45 minutes away, which definitely is part of it. OTOH, I work about 30 minutes away, so this doesn't differ that much than the daycare situation. But again, 10.
My experience from high school theatre tells me that there is a lot of down time for anyone not playing a main role. As a result, the bored people will tend to find a way to make out with one another.
Answer: store the kid backstage. It will give the bored actors something to do and remind them what can happen if they let the making out go too far.
When Hawaiian Punch was this age and I was playing soccer, we hired one of the baby-sitters to come with us to the games and watch her on the sidelines. So there's a precedent for that sort of thing. It just gets expensive, because now it means two separate baby-sitters.
More serious answer: is it something where Jammies can do you a solid and stay home with the wee ones? Sucks not to go together, but it's an answer.
I don't get what the problem is either. He's probably already been secretly baptized anyway.
I'm with apo and urple. You have people you trust generally, you're putting him in daycare this week -- realistically, what's going to go wrong with a six-week baby that'd be differently dangerous than an older baby. If you want to go and enjoy yourself, leave him home.
14: It may be that that makes the most sense. It'd be a shame, but nothing that doesn't come with the territory of kids-having.
He's probably already been secretly baptized anyway.
That's exactly why I thoroughly Scotchgarded my kids any time the grandparents took them anywhere.
Maybe you could hire a babysitter to come to the play and watch both kids in the lobby there. If there's a lobby.
19: Hawaiian Punch decompensates around 7 pm, and the play isn't until 10.
Really, though: from a sitting perspective, babies are an order of magnitude simpler than, say, three-year-olds. There are really only three tasks: give him a bottle, change his diaper, hold and carry him.
I'm trying to earnestly investigate if my uneasiness with the babysitter solution is based in anything real, or just general oooh-first-time!-ness.
Sitter #1 is the daughter of a colleague, used to watch the elder at soccer games, and hasn't had much (any?) experience beyond our family. Hence hasn't had to problem shoot with babies before.
Sitter #2 came recommended. However every single time she's sat for us, we haven't needed her until ~7 pm, so she's never actually met Hawaiian Punch. All she's ever had to do is sit around and do her homework or watch TV. This isn't evidence against her. It's just an absence of information.
Anyway, this is why I feel like I know much more about the daycare providers in the baby room.
Huh. I'm trying to remember the last time I did anything that started at 10:00 pm. I'm pretty sure it was before I had kids.
We did do a double-take when we found out what time the play was at.
hasn't had to problem shoot with babies before
Isnt' there about a 95% chance that no problem shooting will be necessary? Assuming she knows how to do the three tasks outlined in 22, and that she can dial your cell phone or 911 if the baby needs anything else, I'd say you're likely all set.
The Jammies solution seems best to me.
I wouldn't be freaked out about leaving the Pokester with a babysitter in general, but might have a slightly different fear: the older kid is so much more work that maybe a super inexperienced babysitter would get too overwhelmed by having to deal with two kids at once. That fear would be magnified if we're talking about the average 15 year old girl babysitter. Not saying that this fear is rational, of course, but that's what I'd be a little worried about.
I'm the most callous person in the universe, and I admit that, but lack of skill troubleshooting babies is something where I'd worry more about the babysitter having a bad night than the baby. If they're reasonably sane and competent, the baby will be safe: fed, changed, whisked to the hospital if some health emergency arises. If they're not good with babies otherwise, Hokey Pokey may spend the evening crying, but that won't do him any harm; babies do that on occasion. It'll be miserable for the sitter, but that's what you're paying her for.
the older kid is so much more work that maybe a super inexperienced babysitter would get too overwhelmed by having to deal with two kids at once.
Well, Hawaiian Punch will be long asleep. And is a totally sound sleeper.
So you all seem to think it's out of the question to bring him along and just step out if he fusses. I was secretly rooting for that option.
We could always have Babysitter #1 come over for an hour before then, and give her a chance to ask any questions she has.
Still, I was rooting for the former.
Well, in that case, I say get the babysitter and have no fear.
Just be sure to give her a pamphlet on shaken baby syndrome before you leave.
it's out of the question to bring him along and just step out if he fusses
I'm generally on Team Take Your Baby Everywhere, but I have to say taking one to a play that starts at 10pm is kinda a stretch. Also, you're way more likely to be able to enjoy the play if you don't have to worry about the baby fussing.
Wait, what play is it? Is it Ionesco's Rhinoceros? 'Cause kids love animals, so that'd be fine.
A play that starts at 10 pm is likely to have cussing. You don't want to corrupt little Hokey yet.
So you all seem to think it's out of the question to bring him along and just step out if he fusses. I was secretly rooting for that option.
If my wife and I were going with a baby that age, that's what we would have done (and basically did do in comparable situations, because we're too cheap to pay for sitters, usually). If that's what you want to do, then do it. But that only really works if you're okay with maybe missing a lot of the play. It sounded like you really wanted to see the play, in which case I think most of the comments are meant to reassure you that the baby will almost surely be fine being left with a sitter.
30: I rather like this - see if you can get an aisle seat and then quietly bolt if HP makes a fuss. But Halford is right, it might be distracting for you. A time-tested alternative is, as mentioned above, to have Jammies stay home with the little ones.
Rory advises that it wouldn't bother her as an actress, but she doesn't know about other people. I'm thinking so long as your friend is a bit older than 11, you're probably fine bringing him. Also, as a mom, I suggest finding a seat wear you won't be uncomfortable popping out a boob and feeding him in the theater if he gets fussy.
Rory advises that it wouldn't bother her as an actress, but she doesn't know about other people. I'm thinking so long as your friend is a bit older than 11, you're probably fine bringing him. Also, as a mom, I suggest finding a seat wear you won't be uncomfortable popping out a boob and feeding him in the theater if he gets fussy.
But with a play, it seems like you risk disturbing the actors.
I can attest that most actors are already at least somewhat disturbed.
I may be old-fashioned or hate freedom or something, but I think bringing a baby to a play is a terrible idea.
Yeah, I think any plan that involves getting up and leaving and returning multiple times during the performance is likely to disturb the actors and the other audience members, even if you move fast enough to avoid any actual noise from the baby. I'd do it in a movie, if I thought the baby was likely to be pretty quiet, but not for live theater.
Yeah, I gots to say I agree with Apo in 41, somewhat reluctantly.
It depends a bit on the nature of the play and audience, I suppose.
If Jammies isn't available to watch the kids, don't go.
Guys, Rhinoceros is a pretty disruptive play. I seriously doubt anyone's going to notice a baby, what with the fucking rhino on stage.
Babysitter #1 is booked. I asked her if she wanted a dry run with him ahead of time, and she said she thought she'd be fine. So I guess she will be.
Thanks, all.
any plan that involves getting up and leaving and returning multiple times during the performance is a terrible idea, agreed. That definitely shouldn't be the plan. I was imagining that, with the play starting at 10, there would be a good chance that the HP would basically sleep through it, with maybe at most some stirring to nurse and then back off to sleep. When I was advocating bringing the baby if you want to, it would be on the condition that if the baby does anything but sleep through the performance, you (or Jammies) would be getting up and taking the baby out of the theater, never to return again.
46: You went and made a decision, already???
There was probably at least another 300 comments left in this topic!
I guess now we're all going to feel bad if HP gets dropped on his head.
I concede that the logic of my 35 was ironclad and unanswerable.
The play in question is part of a big theater festival where basically every conceivable performance space in our fair city is booked for multiple different performances every night. Which explains the late start time.
You could always say that the baby is part of the performance, a modern analog to Brecht's audience smoking cigars.
If Hokey-Pokey gets corrupted by profanity, you can always reset him by dropping him on his head.
53: Nope. Despite his initials he's an iBaby, so you have to send him back to the manufacturer to have that done.
So you all seem to think it's out of the question to bring him along and just step out if he fusses. I was secretly rooting for that option.
Despite my carefully cultivated reputation as a child-hating monster, I actually like most kids fine.
But this is me emphatically stating that this is not a valid option. Not fair to people in the audience, really not fair to the actors. Theater is just not one of those spaces that's for everyone.
It's too late for this solution, which seems so simple that surely someone else must have suggested it already, but is there some reason you can't just offer an evening of work to one of the people you trust at the daycare center? Are parents forbidden from offering them incentive-laden moonlighting gigs?
Also, next time oudemia and smearcase go out on a date together to the theater, I'm booking a ticket and sitting with my baby, in my lap (because the pilot made me, that's why), directly behind them. I'm also going to make sure that I have a persistent cough that night. "Sorry, he'll calm down in a minute. [hack, hack, hack] No, really, he doesn't usually cry for more than ten or fifteen minutes. [hack, noseblow, hack] Milkduds?"
60: Don't bother asking them to take off their enormous straw hat during the performance then.
59 would have probably worked out fine.
Something about the baby-sitter's answer made me suspect she's acquired some baby experience elsewhere since she started working for us. Anyway, her confidence went a long way with me, because I think she's pretty resourceful in general, as long as she's comfortable in a situation.
They're going to be wearing just one hat? Intimate!
My experience with parents of second babies suggests that a satisfactory solution can be found by placing the baby in a knapsack, then flinging the knapsack onto the roof of the theatre to be collected or forgotten at the play's end.
61: Now I want to see two people sharing an enormous straw hat with a portrait brim and two crowns. Sort of like two eggs sunnyside up.
We are wearing one hat because oudemia and I are the same person. One of us made the other up. I'm not saying which.
62: Having never employed a babysitter, I wouldn't really know, but I'm guessing that evinced confidence would allay a lot of my concerns as well. Anyway, I'm sure it will be fine. I was just doing my part as the shop steward for the daycare workers' union.
I knew a guy who carried a two person umbrella, with a single handle but split stem, which ended in two mostly-complete umbrellas which were sewn together along their missing portions. It looked like a bosom.
66: Ooooh, this is like that one Laurie Moore book! But sadder and weirder and more pathetic! Can I adapt your story into a screenplay?
If we were at the Met, I was thinking we could hand ari's baby off to one of the weirdos sitting in the closed caption room downstairs. He'd totally get it back, no problem.
bosom
This is not blog-standard style, is it? Not unless the new Victorian/shtetl conventions have taken hold, it's not.
noseblow, hack
First off, it's nosflow, and secondly, you shouldn't insult people so readily, ari.
Laurie Moore is the only person I have ever written fan mail to. I mean it wasn't exactly fan mail, or it tried to pretend not to be. Its main feature was the Chinese characters for Bruce Springsteen.
Is blog-standard style "drunk"? I'm not drunk.
They're going to be wearing just one hat? Intimate!
69: I was thinking it was more like Fight Club. I just can't figure out whether Oudemia or Smearcase is more likely to enjoy punching people in the face.
70 My ex and I refer to that room as the penalty box.
73: I used to love Laurie Moore but have completely lost track of her since you stopped letting her leave your basement.
74: I was riffing on "bog standard" and "blog style". That it made no sense seemed utterly beside the point. Until you had to make it the point, monster.
You should see oudemia and Smearcase play the accordion.
78.2: She does have quite the reputation for being mean, I hear.
After A Gate at the Stairs I let her out of my basement. Sad face. Also jeez what kind of crazy stalker fan am I: Lorrie Moore.
Lorrie Moore.
Ah, I knew that looked wrong the first time I typed it. Oops.
Any plans?
-excuse me, while I kiss this guy
-slippin scissors in my ride
-I will choose a bathysphere, I will choose free will
Okay, I'm off to read more of this monograph about every book that Abraham Lincoln ever read. This is...literary history? Or something else? I honestly can't figure it out. It seems like there's really no reason to read the body of the book; just skip to the index, which is a list of books that Lincoln read. (NB: Lorrie Moore is nowhere on the list, which explains quite a lot, really.)
Anyway, good to see you all!
Wow, I didn't sign 83 AND I got it in the wrong thread. Too bad I didn't misspell something and also get pwnd. That would have been awesome.
84: Does the index have asterixes beside the books that were read by firelight?
||
Elle Magazine
Does Sports Illustrated do this? Maxim? Do guys get treatments?
|>
Hi, bob mcmanus! Hi, y'all!
It's late notice, but if anyone is in the Bay Area, you're invited to this, on Saturday.
Which is also this.
And Mysterious Things are Happening At Obsidian Wings..
It's not your grandmother's Obsidian Wings, even if it looks like it on the surface.
No, Hilzoy only visits for a comment once in a blue moon.
And, no, I haven't written my piece on Asenath/DominEditrix yet. It will still happen, if I can make it happen.
Meanwhile, do feel free to visit one of my parties. You are invited.
Spread the word, please?
Thanks muchly.
Also, I'm only a dog on the internet. Consider.
Lastly: you're all invited to Friend me on Facebook, if you simply drop me a sentence that gives me a clue where you know me from, such as, well, I suppose not "Unfogged" any more, but that works fine for me. A clue to your handle is nice, but not necessary, since I probably won't remember anyway; almost certainly not.
But feel free to not be a complete stranger.
See you when I do!
Virtually, or in the Bay Area, tomorrow, or next week, or whenever.
Peace, love, but death to evil, save that we're all dead in the not very long run, anyway.
Meanwhile: be here now. Or there. Or over there.
Toodles!
Also, you've probably helped out Lance Mannion, and helped out Roy Edroso.
That last post is far too long, and this is the same, but do help Roy and Lance, if you haven't.
Remember to be kind. It won't kill anyone.
every book that Abraham Lincoln ever read
Even the ones about hunting vampires?
hunting vampires
The availability of cheap GPS collars has revived the use of hunting vampires.
Gee, things have slowed down around here since last I looked.
Ah, the ebb and flow of the tides of teh interwubs.
It irritates me enough when people bring their babies to a movie. I want to slap them around when they bring them to a play. I remember being in plays and having a baby start to cry in the middle of a scene. Yes, the parent took them out to the lobby but it was still monumentally distracting (for the actors and the audience) and, quite frankly, rude.
Being a mom I understand your reticence to leave Hokey with a sitter and probably wouldn't have left any of my kiddos with a high school girl when they were that tiny. So Hokey either needs to stay home with Jammies or you need to skip the play.
Feel free to read the thread. Especially comment 46.
Reticence? She wrote a whole post and several comments. Seems she's got plenty to say about the matter.
96: "Reticence to leave HokeyPokey . . ." is exactly what HG wrote and talked about. Wow, you guys are jumping down 94's metaphorical throat.
I think Stanley was suggesting that kel was looking for the word "reluctance" rather than "reticence".
But yeah, it did get kind of "internet Mean Girls" there for a minute, didn't it?
Er, yeah, I was going for playfully pedantic. Sorry if it came off as mean, kel!
Why does everyone insist on using just the first definition in the list?
97: Well, we know heebie is mean as a snake.
Unsurprisingly, "snake" was the first suggestion from Google when I typed in "mean as a". The second choice, though, was "balance point." I've never thought of balance points as being any more or less nasty than average.
Yes, they're very average. But mean, too.
I jumped down Kel's throat because the comment pissed me off. Specifically:
I want to slap them around when they bring them to a play.
brings out the mean in me.
100: Huh, I didn't even realize this was a valid use of 'reticence'; I thought it was just people confusing two similar words. But the OED has examples going back more than a century, so I guess if it's a mistake it's one time-honored enough to be considered part of the language by now.
When Heebie reaches her limit she normally goes into her mean mode.
100: When one of the meanings is "penis," nobody forgets if they want to make a bad joke.
100, 104: See this recent thread at Crooked Timber and this comment in particular.
109: Interesting. I didn't read that thread or post because I thought it was about steampunk, which I have zero interest in. I guess I shouldn't have the presumption that CT threads will stay on-topic.
108: Or the FA. Seems like we are going into reruns again.
Ba, that's the not link to the FA, this is the link to the FA
Whenever the Internet blossoms into another fugue-for-a-million-voices about how terrible babies are in theaters/cinemas/restaurants/etc., I think of the many cases of shockingly selfish, inconsiderate or rude behavior by adults that I have witnessed in such venues and recall the parable of the cinder and the plank.
111: Good that you honed in on the right link, since 110 was confusing.
112: I don't know how that parable goes because the baby behind me cried during mass.
114: I bet you turned around and glared, you big meanie.
No. It was my baby. I don't sit in the same row as the rest of the family in case I meet somebody cute.
I just learned about the term "meet cute", but I think that happens only in movies. Do you live in a movie, Moby?
If, back before I had kids, I had known the amount of tedium involved in being a parent, I would not have begrudged parents the occasional night out even if that meant I had to hear more crying babies.
Whenever the Internet blossoms into another fugue-for-a-million-voices about how terrible babies are in theaters/cinemas/restaurants/etc., I think of the many cases of shockingly selfish, inconsiderate or rude behavior by adults that I have witnessed in such venues and recall the parable of the cinder and the plank.
See but if I'm understanding this correctly, you're saying "whenever I hear people talking about babies being selfish/rude/inconsiderate, I think of the many cases of adults being selfish/rude/inconsiderate." Which means you're misunderstanding. People who don't want a baby in a theater don't think the child is misbehaving. Babies scream. It's something they do.
People who don't want a baby in the theater think the person who brought the kid there has done something inconsiderate, which they have. It is nearly inevitable that the baby will cry ("fuss" is sort of a funny parental euphemism that covers all ground between muttering cutely and a range of shrieking and howling) and the soundscape of a theatrical performance is such that a roomful of people will have their experience disrupted.* Meanwhile, a stageful of people who are trying to do something that requires a lot of concentration may be very thrown off.
Patti LuPone and Stanley Tucci have famously broken character and gone berserk at audience members (not people with babies, because you can't do that, but people with cell phones) who didn't stop to think about the fact people are quiet at a play not by convention, but because acting for a large room full of people requires everyone to agree to sacrifice a little of their own right to act like they're watching tv in their living room.
*at this point someone usually gets sarcastic about the poor, put-upon adults having to put up with a tiny disruption of their precious play. It's a kind of anti-aesthetic stance the people who say this kind of thing might never take in other circumstances.
119
I agree with this, taking a baby to a theater is like taking a cell phone with a crying baby ring tone.
I'm with Laura. I do believe babies should be in public. In the grocery store, on a plane, in a restaurant--it takes a village, and no one should be imprisoned in their home by raising a child. A movie designed for children, or even not for children but earlier in the day, sure. Even possibly a matinee of a play I could sort of see. Matinees, IME, are always offered for the benefit of the elderly and the very young, and the actors tend to be prepared for the fact that it's not going to be their finest performance, and it definitely will be interrupted a lot, but it's worth it to be able to share their work with an audience that may not have access to their later performances.
But by setting a curtain time of 10pm, this company is most definitely trying to signal that this is an experience for adults. With a movie, you might just be bothering other film-goers, which plenty of stupid fucking adults do all the time. But with a play, one pointedly scheduled to start as late as I've ever heard of outside of a college theater group, there are also performers to consider.
No reviewer, for example, would consider it worthwhile to cover a performance based on a matinee, because matinees are all about learning to deal with talking, crying, getting up and leaving, unwrapping candies, shushing, etc. It would be cruel to base the fate of a theater company on work they are doing under those conditions.
Even possibly a matinee of a play I could sort of see. Matinees, IME, are always offered for the benefit of the elderly and the very young, and the actors tend to be prepared for the fact that it's not going to be their finest performance
This really isn't true for opera, where Saturday matinées especially are costlier and more sought after tickets -- not to mention often broadcast and recorded. (The Met offers special children's matinées for things like The Magic Flute, etc., and there certainly everyone is prepared for the noize to be brought.)
a cell phone with a crying baby ring tone
Brilliant idea. I totally want that ring tone.
My first cell phone had "La Cucaracha" as a ring tone. I considered it a gift.
121: Yes. My wife was once told to keep our then three-year old quiet while there were eating lunch outdoors at a park. The park was fitted with a carousel and between two libraries, but he had study right there.
128: This is totally fucking stupid. Children in public are going to be what they are, and everyone needs to be cool with that. And I feel that it's jackasses like that who make it impossible for others of us to make what seem to us to be very well-thought-out and reasonable requests, like that infants maybe shouldn't be invited along to late night live theater, or, as Jackmormon and I found out the hard way while painting at the Botanic Gardens one year, that parents should not abandon their children with strangers without even speaking to those strangers to find out if they desire to become instant free babysitters and then wander well out of eyesight.
Are the childless sometimes insensitive assholes? Yes!
Are people with children sometimes insensitive assholes? Yes!
Let's take both of those for granted, remember that children and what they might actually want might be involved in decision-making, and give each other a little space. (Do kids particularly enjoy being abandoned by their parents with strange women and not being able to find their parents? Hell no. Feeling's mutual, kid.)
Of course when I wrote something on Facebook about how two women painting in public are OBVIOUSLY free child care and bonus art instruction for your children, I was of course immediately screamed at by people accusing me of being so selfish that I couldn't spend a few hours serving as inspiration to the youth of America or whatever. Fuck that noise. If I were a dude, you wouldn't dare.
Are the childless sometimes insensitive assholes? Yes!
Are people with children sometimes insensitive assholes? Yes!
I've been both.
People who don't want a baby in the theater think the person who brought the kid there has done something inconsiderate, which they have.
If I had thought of it, I would have included an alternative, if more awkward, rendering of 112 citing the principle of proportionality and suggesting that the vehemence with which children tend to be condemned on the Internet exceeds the gravity of the lack of consideration involved in bringing children to some location where Joe Internet Tough Guy would rather not see or hear them.
134: Who's condemning children? I think we've all agreed that the problem is pretty much never the children themselves.
Maybe the two-year-old demanded to be included in plans to see the 10pm production of The Pillowman, but it seems unlikely.
131 Of course when I wrote something on Facebook about how two women painting in public are OBVIOUSLY free child care and bonus art instruction for your children, I was of course immediately screamed at by people accusing me of being so selfish
This is appalling. Get better friends, AWB.
[I'm sorry. I just can't help noticing that this is almost always the appropriate response when someone recounts something that happened on Facebook. Maybe the proper inference is that we all need a better Facebook, or none at all.]
136: That would be a pretty cool two-year-old, really.
OT: I disdain both teams, but I would very much like to see a larger-than-average defensive lineman knock Ben Roethlisberger flat, dig a circa-size-19 cleat into his crotch and say "I have a daughter."
138: I wholeheartedly endorse 138.2. Make it so.
Maybe the proper inference is that we all need a better Facebook
Macebook shoots teargas at the poster whenever you dislike their status.
139: Although I wouldn't want 138 to be interpreted in favor of the obstruction of justice in double murder cases.
Who's condemning children?
Me! I'll condemn children!
(I was just about to condemn my own to an evening without movies, but they shaped up.)
137, 142: Friend better colleagues.
I'm thinking maybe I should condemn myself to an evening without movies.
If this is actually about The Pillow Man I will laugh. I'm guessing they don't put on a lot of special bring-the-kids! matinees of that one. Fine, brutal piece of playwrighting, though.
134: the vehemence with which children tend to be condemned on the Internet
Not to be all Sheareresque, but are children really so universally condemned on the internet? Aren't there tons of so-called 'mommy blogs' on which, presumably, the rights of mommies are robustly defended? Sure, 'smasher was in a snit about some ketchup that time in the FA, but I'd bet for every one of those rants, there's another claiming that child-haters are like racists (or whatever it was that Sybil said over at B's place).
146: You've never seen "Elmo Meets "Lars von Trier."
The sports team from my area won and I feel glad for extremely vague and poorly supported reasons. Go team, go.
147: She said not liking children was anti-feminist/misogynist. It was the first and last time I read that blog, which, I guess, is gone now anyway, because this struck me as so incredibly dumb. I'm sure later in the thread someone compared it to racism, because ti's the internet, and it's inevitable.
The sports team from my area lost and I'm doing my best to understand and be sympathetic to the despair felt by many in my area.
This afternoon I replied to my cow-orker's question whether there was "Ravens Fever" in my household with, "Yeah, sorta, in desultory fashion; my housemate did mention "Ravens versus the Penns! yay!" I was informed that there's no such team as the Penns.
Oh. Right. I guess I was thinking of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Maybe.
151: She sidles right up next to saying racist, actually:
Kids are a vulnerable, disempowered, inevitable portion of the human community and you do not get to "not like" them or to wish that weren't a part of your public space. Not allowed. I invite you to swap out "kids" for any other disempowered community in the above phrases ("women," "schizophrenics," "hispanics," "the blind") and notice what an asshole you sound like.
You're (not you as you are quoting) supposed to say, "people with schizophrenia" instead of schizophrenic. I'm not sure if you'd say "people with hispanicness" or not.
This thread is making me incredibly defensive. It said right there in the OP that I was looking for a solution so that I didn't disturb all the actors.
151: Misogynist, was it? I'd hesitated, as I couldn't quite remember what the (should-be-banned) analogy had been.
On preview, we're agreed, I guess, that it was a terrible post. My point to Flippanter was only that there's plenty of offense (compare to defense) on both sides where the topic of children in public is concerned. Watch that epistemic closure, baby!
In light of 157, clarification: I mean that Sybil's was a terrible post, not Heebie's.
157: I took the thread to have moved on to a more general discussion, your immediate question having been answered.
Watch that epistemic closure, baby!
Sorry. The zipper sometimes does that on old pants.
Oh, now I'm wrong about something else!
What, what? What are you wrong about now?
(I'm with Stanley: the thread moved on to generalizations, beastly things that they are.)
I think of the many cases of shockingly selfish, inconsiderate or rude behavior by adults
I would think those of use who object to noisy babies in theaters object to noisy or otherwise rude adults as well. There's no dilemma here--we object to all rude behavior, all planks and cinders. So, I'm with Laura.
In high school I realized that I couldn't attend movies with my mother because she could not keep herself from asking questions, making comments, etc. and I treat the movie theater like devout Lutheran grandparents treat church, aka STFU. But the rest of the movie-going public is not so fastidious, so I don't go to the theater any more. Also, movies are crazy expensive these days.
Somewhere on the internet, I just encountered a comment saying that going to a conference in China at an institution funded by the Chinese government is analogous to supporting the Nazis in 1942. That's probably dumber than what Sybil said, right?
162 to 160, but it was supposed to be funny.
generalizations, beastly things that they are
General Sherman's tactics are viewed by many as beastly, at yet one has to confront the possibility that, without the March to the Sea, the Civil War may have raged on even longer, with even more casualties.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
That's probably dumber than what Sybil said, right?
I guess so.
I still think that what SV said was both (a) right, if not very carefully stated and (b) taken charitably, not at all Inconsistent with a rule that it's a bad idea to take your kid to a 10pm play. She was talking about the general sentiment "I don't like kids" or the sense of generalized offense that children could possibly be seen in any public space -- the guy Moby's wife encountered in the park would be an example. The analogy to racism or misogyny isn't perfect, but it's not ludicrously far fetched or non-illuminating, either.
172: Because I typed "at" when I meant to type "and"? Way to go, me.
||
Is anyone else watching this football game and getting a broadcast that's clipped on the left and right sides? It's rather annoying, as that cuts out the score, quarter, and clock. Grrr, Fox.
|>
173: He may have just been a misogynist of the regular kind. If you want to yell a woman who won't make a scene, somebody watching a toddler is a pretty safe bet. Nobody wants to be the parent of the kid who teaches all the other kids to say "goatball-licking cat-fucker."
She was talking about the general sentiment "I don't like kids" or the sense of generalized offense that children could possibly be seen in any public space
Was that the sentiment she was originally responding to, though? I'd have to check the original post to remember, but I had the sense that she was vastly generalizing from someone's statement that kids are not always appropriate in every setting to the notion that this amounted to child-hating overall.
Put differently, default rules that you (a) don't get to generally say "I don't like kids" without being an antihumanist asshole and (b) should reasonably accomodate them whenever possible isn't at all crazy, and I take that to be SV's point. The closer analogue is obviously disability discrimination, not race discrimination, but you're still talking about trying to eliminate animus towards a class of vulnerable people (both children and parents).
Nobody wants to be the parent of the kid who teaches all the other kids to say "goatball-licking cat-fucker."
I wouldn't say that I wanted it, but I've come to peace with it.
Seen on BoingBoing, more disturbing fun with Amazon customer reviews.
I wouldn't say that I wanted it, but I've come to peace with it.
What's it called when you guarantee that something will occur and then act bemused about it?
I genuinely want to know; it has wide application.
In fairness, the Sybil post in question is here.
She's not *necessarily* just riffing off those who complain of people with kids in not-kid-appropriate circumstances, though they're implicated, which is probably why I didn't remember clearly what the point was.
180: Great, Moby. I just realized I was logged into my Amazon seller's account when I clicked on that. Now it's going to show up in my Amazon history -- visible only to my cow-orker, but still.
|>
175:Don't care about sports, but am interested in television. What I am watching (on Fox w Aikman?) is letter-boxed on a 19" tube (at two feet away, what do I want a 50" for...might have to pay attention.) I do have the score thingy and the logo thingy, don't think I am missing anything. Looks great, probably digital HD somewhere in the high channels
I checked because I expect the default broadcast to be sent for widescreen sometime soon. But why should I care?
Latest movies:An Education w Mulligan and Solitary Man w Douglas. Both were ok, E just more female fantasy stuff (Paris with older man! then victimhood! and Oxford! after all) but very well done with attractive performances. SM was more interesting and braver.
But neither made me care. She likes it, so I guess we keep cable, since cutting me off wouldn't save anything. But I turn it on less and less.
|>
The analogy to racism or misogyny isn't perfect, but it's not ludicrously far fetched or non-illuminating, either.
Why, Robert Halford, are you so very wrong about everything? The analogy from children to members of suspect classes is distinctly bogus. We very legitimately "discriminate against" children as such.
That's among the reasons why Cala is really going to like college.
If I enjoyed chagrin, I'd have been fucking ecstatic for all of high school and college.
Why, Robert Halford, are you so very wrong about everything?
Because he's the early Wittgenstein of Unfogged?
Cala? What?
Was I the one who smacked down the notion of Halford as early Wittgenstein of Unfogged? It should be said that the early Witt. wasn't an idiot, after all, you know. It only took a later Wittgenstein to take issue, and that ain't easy.
Of course Witt was never an idiot. But why hasn't she been commenting much lately? I miss Witt.
193: True. I use "Witt" for Wittgenstein, obviously -- a holdover from grad school, from back in the old days when people scribbled notes by hand. I have no idea what the kids these days do: how do you write notes (on topic, to yourself) in a lecture on a laptap? It seems self-hampering.
SB, if you weren't a childless, witless asshole, you might a bit more about the concepts of "discrimination" and " reasonable accomodation.". Of course we "discriminate" aginst children (ie, treat them differently) and we "discriminate" in l other areas of life. The analogue lies in figuring out that there might be some of animus-based discrimination going on towards both kids and parents (which is what "I don't like kids" means), and that there is also a broad scope -- perhaps broader than one might think! -- for creating reasonable accomodations, which is roughly, though hardly perfectly, analagous to issues that come up in the disability discrimination context. For instance, building in spaces for children in public spaces (playgrounds, changing rooms, etc) vs. Wheelchair ramps, etc.
Is the analogy perfect? No. But it's ludicrous to say that it's completely out of bounds.
195: Understood, your comment just made me realize I don't remember noticing many comments from Witt in the last, I don't know, month?
Children should be copyrighted so that they might live forever.
SB, if you weren't a childless, witless asshole
Come on. I'm not witless.
I think these arguments are generally lost once someone busts out the "you don't have kids!" (Also, RH, you know this about SB?)
194: Ah. I remembered the joke vaguely but didn't really recall, if I ever knew, specifics; Cala's been gone a long time. She never knew chagrin? I just took the "going to college" bit as a tease about experiential virginity. Which seems to be the idea. Cala's been gone from here a long time, babe.
Also, my Fox broadcast is basically letterboxed.* One of the (non-BCS) bowl games, I'm not sure on what channel, came through with the edges cut off, but I haven't seen that since (nor saw it before).
*I'm used to letterbox meaning you get the bars on the top and the bottom; this is more like framed.
That was intended as a joke (the "witless and childless" part, not the rough analogy to disability discrimination, which I really do think has a lot going for it). Unless SB was actually insulting me for reals, in which case, he can fuck himself.
Robert Halford, are you sure you're not eating too much meat?
My apologies to Judith Martin. May your comment rest in peace.
he can fuck himself
What is this, more epistemic bravado?
Can anyone here recommend a linear programming solver?
||
Holy crap, I have never eaten a meal remotely like that.
|>
If it wears Tevas, forget about it.
205 -- Nah, just a total failure in communication of tone. I was trying to defuse SB by a kind of joshing insult thing back but apparently totally failed in tone and style.
Anyhow, who cares, but I think all of y'all are being unfair and mean to SV.
209 seems to be begging a question or two.
Oh my god, Cryptic Ned from the thread linked in 194:
I too am going to have to revise my opinion of Jane Smiley since I realized she didn't write "The Marshmallow Masquerade", "The Banana Split Affair", "The Jelly Bean Scheme", "Apple Pie Adventure", and "Pink Lemonade Charade".
The Pratt twins solve mysteries! Wow. I read all of those.
Holy crap, I have never eaten a meal remotely like that.
I'm told you get used to the robot arm after a while.
. I was trying to defuse SB by a kind of joshing insult thing
But I was trying to defuse you in precisely the same way (see 200).
Maybe we should hug.
206, OP: I MISS MANNERS!!
At one point there was this shaved ice kind of topping thing on a dish. It was made out of marrow! Surprise!
For crying out loud. Sybil had a point with respect to those who simply can't abide kids, no way no how, ever or anywhere. Her point was limited insofar as there aren't, I don't think, many who take that stance.
Her point was damaged by her tossing in of cases in which one might object that children are not appropriate at all times or in all places. It was further greatly damaged by the suggestion that such objections amounted to oppression. She's a sloppy thinker.
Fine, it was a random, fairly free-form post, though. Whatever.
It's taking me a long time to figure out what's wrong with the analogy between children and (disabled/minorities). One part is that children really aren't that vulnerable because they are protected and provided for my their parents. The other is in the meaning of discrimination. People who rail against the presence of children aren't meaningfully discriminating against them, at least not in the way that we think about race/disability discrimination. Saying "I'd rather there weren't any children here" doesn't really cause the children any damage. It causes their parents some annoyance instead. Whereas saying "I'd rather there weren't any disabled/hispanic folks here" really does harm them in meaningful ways.
Further to 221, maybe I should have previewed.
I once (and only once) had a meal that included steak tartare, pancreas (from what I forget), foie gras, and a shit-ton of amuse-bouche.
Saying "I'd rather there weren't any children here" doesn't really cause the children any damage. It causes their parents some annoyance instead.
It certainly could cause damage to parents or the children, if taken to an extreme. I'm not arguing that it has been taken to an extreme, but, some people would clearly do so if they could. While I would apologize and soothe if I had a baby scream on the airplane, I'm not going to feel bad for taking a kid on a plane. It is largely the only way to get anywhere and pushing somebody onto the nonexistent alternatives because they might scream is a real limitation.
I'm trying to think of an example where I heard a Spanish-speaking person use any variation of the term "hispanic" when that person wasn't making fun of the term. Maybe hispanohablante a few times. Maybe.
Remember when Meryl Streep, testifying to Congress about the horrors of Alar, cried, "What about the Hispanics?"
There was a thing that looked (and tasted) like a tiny everything bagel, but which was actually ice cream.
228: Like an everything bagel with cream cheese or did they whoops the dairy out of it?
229: everything bagel with onions and lox, but the lox was a powder.
No idea if there was dairy involved. It looked, smelled, and tasted exactly like an everything bagel, except it was ice cream.
227 made me laugh. Badly, or poorly.
No idea if there was dairy involved [...] except it was ice cream.
?
233: I see what you're saying, but reiterate.
I think that SV's point was simply that you need a good reason other than "but I just find kids annoying" before excluding them from public spaces, and that we should all try to design and manage public spaces in ways that, where it's possible and reasonable to do so, accomodate kids and parents. Don't we all agree with that? And aren't those at least somewhat analagous to the concerns that motivate, for example, the Americans with Disabilities Act?
(I admit I'm giving her some charity, but since SV is, as far as I know, not suffering from a head injury I doubt that what she wants to have discrimination children classified as, e.g., the precise equivalent of discrimination on the basis of race under US employment law)
235: "because they have no frontal lobes"
Can we at least distinguish between discrimination against children and discrimination against people-with-children?
Can we also be a bit clearer about what we mean by discrimination? I'd agree with Halford that disability rights are the closest analogy. We'd want to be clear there, though, that being-with-children is not actually a disabled (as in dysfunctional) state, any more than being deaf is: it's differently abled. Access should be provided *when feasible*. That's about where the analogy ends.
Lest I sound child-unfriendly, I'm not. I'm a freakin' hippy by some measures: kids should be dancing about freely and barefoot wherever and whenever feasible, and I'll dance right along with.
I'm really not sure why people with children are so defensive.
Wait, why would I begin to engage this? Mmm, yummy food.
235 sounds reasonable. My memory was that SV was saying more or less that it is morally wrong to find kids annoying, but I'm not going to reread her post to see if I can dig that out. (I know, I know, there's no point trying to engage me in discussion if I'm too lazy to go back to the source.)
Oh, hey, they finally fixed the aspect-ratio thing with twenty seconds remaining. Thanks, Fox!
You know what bugs me more than loud children in a theater? This.
248: How can you doubt the singularity when we live in a world where Arby's sells bagel ice cream?
248: that's bafflingly stupid. I can only imagine how smart a computer would have to be to render that ordinarily comprehensible.
Speaking of Arby's, our local one has a Tea Party-related story.
It's Saturday Night. Do you:
-Think it's alright for fighting
-Look for its heart
-Broadcast live from New York
-Come down with a fever
-Lack company, although you got some money 'cause you just got paid.
-Try to hop on an in-joke bandwagon after it's been over for awhile.
251
that's bafflingly stupid. I can only imagine how smart a computer would have to be to render that ordinarily comprehensible.
Huh? The link in 248 may be wrong but it doesn't seem particularly unclear to me.
The one by me has a flag that says "Beef 'n Cheddar is made from people."
-Lack company, although you got some money 'cause you just got paid.
Being anti-Frankenstein is almost as bad as being anti-children.
254: the chain of stupid premises you're required to accept in order to get to his point is perfectly clear, but rapidly transcends ordinary sense-making.
240: My memory was that SV was saying more or less that it is morally wrong to find kids annoying
Yeah, she was.
OT: I just learned what Cee Lo looks like. I was expecting some one taller.
Weird. I was just thinking about writing a comment about Cee Lo.
261: What was yours going to be? There's still room for more comments!
263: If every comment gets its own URL and everybody says something about Cee Lo, the internet might run out of addresses.
My memory was that SV was saying more or less that it is morally wrong to find kids annoying
If not saying, making it perfectly clear she thought so. That thread is a terrific example of why the analogy ban is such a good idea, if you ask me. Say that not liking kids is like racism and you've just transplanted a lot of baggage--associations like, oh, slavery and lynching.
And then a lot of mapped-over sub-analogies that simply do not work because childhood and race are really pretty different things. I don't know, F probably makes the point I am flailing at better in 222. I just think the whole SV thing was epic wank and the analogy she made, a kind of stealth Godwin, doesn't serve any good or useful purpose beyond cheaply validating the scale of her outrage.
In summary: me being a dick about kids at the movie [does not equal sign] holocaust.
p.s. good sport award to Heebie, because it is a generous act of blogging to write something that will make you the apparent target of a bunch of kvetching and hollering, even if you are not the actual target and we all think you are swell.
Thanks! Although I got kind of bitchy, which probably dilutes the effect.
ARGH. How much of an asshole am I entitled to be when i find out that there's a fucking german couchsurfer living in my fucking house when I get back from my holiday?
(Apparently a guest of my flatmate's.)
Also, more seriously, how much rent would you ask off for living in a house with major building works going on (as in, there are several unliveable rooms, there's a new extension being built, etc. etc.)? Does it make a difference that most of the renters are away on holiday?
The important thing, in discussing discrimination against children, is to remember always to do so with reference to Sybil's post. That way there's less danger of comity.
On of my most memorable nights on the job involved a new music concert to which a woman had brought two kids, the younger one a boy of about 5. Several minutes into this one long, screeching electronic hootenanny, he just lost it, sobbing and wailing, and the woman put her arm around him but remained seated. (I think she might have been a friend of the composer, as I'd noticed some interaction before the concert and she gave off an I'm-with-the-band kind of vibe). Anyway, this went on for several minutes as people went from glaring at her to climbing over several rows of seats to beg her to leave, which she finally did. In the end, it was more awesome than annoying.
Tonight I was at a party that involved some performance art in various spaces, and the older (not truly elderly) couple sitting behind us talked through an entire performance. The best was when there was a long pause while the performer thought a bit and sat and the woman started saying, "I don't think he knows he can start. Do you think he knows he's on? I'm going to go tell him!" and then got up and walked almost up to the stage to inform him that it was time for him to start the next part of the show before it began again.
No babies, but just obnoxious adults.
There was also a furry (or at least a really eager-looking young man wearing a long, rigidly-stuffed blue fox tail) and a woman who was not quite 30 inches tall. It was the sort of party that makes you think the Stefan bit on SNL is pretty accurate.
Argh and now he (the german couchsurfer) is listening to this really basic explanation of fractional reserve banking and it has this ultra annoying backing track of vaguely funky drums and bass.
(Am pretty sure it's crazy randroid shit as well. And madly monetarist. But.)
my general impression of feminismblogging is an equal combination of trolling and examples of why making not making "I" statements causes conflict.
which probably says more about my taste in workday reading than anything
also i have trouble understanding plays in a work with netflix.
i watched half of mad max today. its one of those movies that you want to turn around and watch the popcorn eaters because their psychology is seems much more alive than the film
it was also much less apocalytic than i thought. like junior high. actually even junior high didn't have such easy access to fossil fuel transport
Hopefully we can at least all agree that SV's post pales in comparison to this epically asshole-ish post on Feministe.
276: I think you get a "get out of asshole free" card when becoming annoyed at this point, regardless of how monetarist the explanation of fractional reserve banking is.
282: Holy smokes. And it takes all of three comments to get to competing disabilities! What about people with PTSD in spaces where children are running around, huh?
oh, christ, I just saw comity sail by me on wings, like the little red ones on enid blyton's wishing chair. sifu: would your experience at the arby's outlet of WD-50 have been improved by the attendance of hokey-pokey, or worsened? and in what way? what if his cries turned out to have been made of ice cream, while the tears were actually little frozen slivers that had been chopped up into a glistening, miniscule hash?
286: Children's tears are made of candy fluff, and pressed into special souvenir menus.
or rather, I wasn't expecting that.
don't bother turning this into a subthread, because ain't nobody going to best 288. good night, all.
I think "Cream O' Weep" might be better there, Estanley.
282: The material issue is not whether children are shorter, cuter or more honest than adults, but whether they are less powerful.
294: And even the NRA isn't pushing the obvious 2nd amendment fix for that.
294: They are less powerful. Next point?
296: That's just for hunting, not urging them to use bullets to get rights at the ballot.
297: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun Playtex disposable sterilized bottle liner.
The hand that rocks the fractional reserve banking rules the world.
They (children) should totes have rights at the ballot. If kids can't vote or bear arms or set the menu for school lunches, why, that's just disenfranchisement, man, just like the disenfranchisement perpetrated against women and blacks, who were infantilized, considered less than fully human, for many a decade. Kids are people too!
Seriously, though. I actually take the point in the article linked in 282 to be somewhat more mild than SV's. The former calls for an expansion of our conception of child-friendly spaces, a point that is well taken, despite the aggressive opening ("you do not have a right to child free spaces"). Sybil was making a much stronger claim -- see 155 -- that you are not allowed to be annoyed by or to disprefer children in, apparently, any setting.
Eh, on a reread of the thing linked in 282, it's equally confused.
Standpipe was right to invoke Miss Manners. There are times and places for a variety of behavioral protocols and expectations. Kids don't always fit, and there's nothing wrong with that. That we might expand our collective sense of when and where kids fit is granted. Kids' (and mothers') rights advocates don't do themselves a service by insisting that exclusion from any circumstance whatsoever constitutes oppression.
301:So convince me that the precocious 17-yr-old college student is less capable of sound political judgment than the Arizona assassin or your average Tea-bagging Palin/Beck worshipper.
No, not all teenagers are responsible, but it doesn't have to be all, but any to change standards to a stricter scrutiny for general discrimination.
I believe the children are our future, but then it turned out that person telling me this was high out of her gourd.
They are less powerful. Next point?
Aren't progressives supposed to snap to condemning attention whenever a power differential is pointed out, or did I hallucinate all those "You're privileged!"-"No, you're privileged!"-"Your mom's privileged!" dustups?
I happily acknowledge that it is important to remember that it's not the kids' fault that they are in fancy restaurants, at late-night movies, in bars, etc. I do not hate kids for being in those situations or for being miserable in those situations. But framing these as "kids' rights" issues seems really disingenuous to me. Oh, this oppressed class of three-year-olds who desperately want to go to bars!
If one wants to make a case for parents' rights including bringing unwilling, unhappy, tired children to places those children don't want to be, that seems to be the real issue here. The only reason the child is making things unpleasant for other people is that she doesn't want to be there and is there against her will.
The only reason the child is making things unpleasant for other people is that she doesn't want to be there and is there against her will.
Like high school.
Aren't progressives supposed to snap to condemning attention whenever a power differential is pointed out
No. Not necessarily.
or did I hallucinate all those "You're privileged!"-"No, you're privileged!"-"Your mom's privileged!" dustups?
Not the same thing. Those "you're privileged!" arguments generally have to do with income or class inequality and the sense of entitlement harbored by those in the ascendant socioeconomic class. Or, at times, "you're privileged!" refers to socioeconomic opportunity, with or without the attendant sense of entitlement.
Having just moved from the most child-friendly neighborhood in the world, I'll report that I thought we had a pretty good system. If you go out anywhere in the neighborhood before 8pm, it is probably kiddo time. There will be kids in your favorite restaurant, bar, coffee shop, store, etc., and there will be no limits to the kind of behavior that is acceptable in these places. After 8pm, it's bedtime. It took me a while to learn the schedule, but I think it worked out fine. If I wasn't feeling up to the scene, I'd just wait until later to go out, and it's not time for dinner until 8:30 anyway.
I agree with AWB.
307: But framing these as "kids' rights" issues seems really disingenuous to me. Oh, this oppressed class of three-year-olds who desperately want to go to bars!
Agreed. I've been trying to figure out why I keep worrying this topic -- I'm not a mom, after all, so why does it bug me so much? -- and I think it's partly because what's framed as "kids' rights" seems actually to be "parents' rights", or at least, there's a muddle there. I get that there are a lot of moms out there who are upset at their felt marginalization. I don't know how much of that is also a function of the desexualization of moms, which B. has said bothers her tremendously.
I take it seriously because I'm a feminist, I imagine. Also because of the hippie thing: I enjoy more kid-friendly communities more than I do the one we have in place most of the time in US.
Sometimes kids do want to be in these adult environments. I take my kids to the office all the time, and they love it there, because I usually give them some change to get food from the "treat machine." Also fun: pushing buttons on the elevator and copy machine.
They have to be on their best behavior at the office, obviously. When they start to get loud I pull them into my personal office which has walls and a door. I worry sometimes that the walls are too thin.
Normally people think the kids are cute. Only once has someone told me that I shouldn't bring kids to the office at all. But he also on two separate occasions looked at the lunch I packed and pronounced it "disgusting"
A friend just linked to this article, which I found sad. This woman has created a play space for disabled kids, which is great, but did it because she and friends with disabled kids were tired of being bullied by other mothers in playgrounds.
But he also on two separate occasions looked at the lunch I packed and pronounced it "disgusting"
People do this! It is psychotic to me and I cannot even imagine my lips forming the words!
(A woman I worked with long ago used to make a careful examination of my lunch each day and pronounce it "disgusting." [It had basically already been stated that all my lunches were going to be disgusting because they didn't contain meat.] So one day after hearing my lentil soup proclaimed "disgusting" as this woman sat down with her bag of McD burgers, finally I said something to the effect of, "One day I will tell you about your lunch and I will make you fucking cry." She stopped.)
309: One could be forgiven for thinking that adults act with just such a sense of entitlement w/r/t the treatment of children, their own and others', individually and generally, locally and something-that-rhymes-with-globally. Do the statistics about infant mortality, child poverty, abuse, etc., vanish when they aren't being used against Bill Clinton or Republicans?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote (in the '30s!) that "[t]he test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children." Suggesting that adults not indulge in My Super Sweet Sixteen-ish bitching about crying babies cramping their style is pretty mild, I think.
315: Who is bitching about babies? Why don't we just assume that no one here hates infants? I want comfort and peace for that kid, because that kid sounds fucking miserable.
I don't know how much of that is also a function of the desexualization of moms, which B. has said bothers her tremendously.
It's like she thinks the pr0n is about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
307
If one wants to make a case for parents' rights including bringing unwilling, unhappy, tired children to places those children don't want to be, that seems to be the real issue here. The only reason the child is making things unpleasant for other people is that she doesn't want to be there and is there against her will.
There is a lot of truth in this.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote (in the '30s!) that "[t]he test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."
If that's the test, then basically we all pass. Every society, as it gains in wealth starts having fewer children and investing more time, energy and money into the well being of each child.
The issue is a bit more complicated, because having fewer, better prepared children also increases wealth, at least once the shift to an industrial economy takes place. But seriously, I think we as a species have proven amply that we care a lot for our children.
I'm surprised at how much heat this subject always generates. I'd guess that ~99% of people have pretty reasonable attitudes re: accommodating small children in public spaces vs realizing that there really are some environments that are inappropriate for a 3 year old.
Kerfluffles like that 700 comment thread at Feministe seem to be driven by a few extremist jerks on both sides.
314: That is a great response. I had a professor who would always comment on my lunch in the cafeteria by saying, "Oh there you are again with your punitive little meal." I'm a vegetarian, and was really poor at the time, and not a big-lunch person anyway. But it occurs to me now that I basically don't ever notice what other people are having for lunch.
315: something-that-rhymes-with-globally
What's that?
Children are indeed exploited and abused, overlooked and dismissed, in very many ways that are condemnable. We are grotesque in our mistreatments and abuses, our failures of attention. But this has little to do with whether parents can or should have screaming kids in china shops or whatever. Please don't up the ante in this way.
Nonetheless, you're bringing me around.
We'll have to give up some of our Culture if we're to take kids out of the private realm and more into the public. I thought you, Flipp, were fairly into Culture.
There's also this, which has been touched on from time to time: if kids are more of a community affair, parents have to be ready and willing to relax some of their ownership. They have to be willing to let other members of the community speak to and interact with, possibly correct, their kids, or even speak to the parent-child relationship (I'm thinking of parents yelling at or yanking their kids around, and what a bystander is allowed to do or say in that circumstance). This is a serious barrier, I want to say logjam, in discussions of bringing kids into the wider community.
I think there's some interaction between this issue and a divide within parents over how to talk publicly about parenting. There's one camp of people who mostly prefer to make humorous complaints about how awful their kids are, and there's another camp that brag aggressively about how much spiritual joy their kids bring.
The latter camp often seem like they are desperately drying to avoid thinking that they have made a horrible mistake. They are like cult members, who, when the predicted apocalypse does not arrive, double down in their beliefs to avoid confronting their error. This sort of person seems also likely to insist that their children should be allowed anywhere, no matter how they are behaving, because again, who wants to admit that their life is dominated by a pack of insane, amoral dwarfs.
319: But seriously, I think we as a species have proven amply that we care a lot for our children.
Rob, we're doing better than we used to as a species, I expect, but we still do a pretty piss-poor job. Locally as well as globally. Child abuse is still high, poverty and hunger rates are high, sexual abuse, also not good. Flipp is right that children are a somewhat disappeared people.
316: I don't think any of us here (maybe bob?) is so contrary a debater as to go all "Keep your brats out of my wallet! No taxes for oppressive breeders!" but surely one wouldn't have look too far to find stuff along those lines elsewhere online, or, in real life, to find people rolling their eyes and muttering about how they would never be so rude and inconsiderate, etc.
319: We may disagree.
322: I am into Culture, but I would like to think that any Culture worth being into can stand the occasional crying baby.
324, 225: Maybe I'm just being a glass is half-full person, for once.
Further to 325 last: At the Frangelico show at the Met a few years ago, a few barren rootless cosmopolitans bien pensants were comically disturbed in their contemplation of the luminous depictions of the-Madonna-and-three-guesses interrupted by actual stroller-bound children. Come on, people.
Kid-friendly environment: there was a bar -- a pub, really -- in Brattleboro, VT that my friends and I loved, and we'd drive 45 minutes, across state lines even, to go to it.
It had numerous types of beer on tap, and a rotating menu of 3 or 4 soups over on the sidetable, each bowl of soup coming with one of a handful of types of hunks of peasant-style bread (you decided on your bread at the bar and were given your hunk there, along with your bowl).
The pub was arranged in long wooden tables -- your party would be sitting next to people you didn't know. Pub accoutrements included many games: chess, checkers, parcheesi, cards, silly games like Operation!, along with darts, and many magazines and newspapers (over near the sidebar next to the soups).
It was fantastic! There were people of all ages there, families with kids, people who hadn't previously known one another pooling together for a game of monopoly. With their soup and bread. Or their beer and newspaper.
Mostly it was about keeping the kids away from the darts.
325 strikes me as insane. So, there's no place is a culture worth being into where people can expect peace and quiet to be the norm? Either because they want to concentrate -- say, the library or their office? Or because they want to hear what they came to see -- movie, play, concert? That can't be right.
That's not directed at kids. Kids who can be quiet are welcome. But I really would not welcome a culture where there is literally no place but my own house where I can expect people to try to be quiet.
there was a bar -- a pub, really -- in Brattleboro, VT that my friends and I loved, and we'd drive 45 minutes
One suspects you went to an elite liberal arts college.
Sorry, that was something of a nosflow noitercsidni rorre.
Which happens also to be the name of the new GOP chairman.
329
325 strikes me as insane ...
Ditto.
329 is confusing. I don't read Flip as arguing in favor of kids screaming anywhere they want and running willy nilly through china shops and wiping their chocolate saturated fingers on prized works of art. If I'm reading correctly, his objection is to people more or less reflexively unwilling to tolerate kids. And in my experience, the people most disturbed by the presence of children are largely bothered less by the actual children and more by their own internal tension in reaction to how bothersome they are expecting the kids to be.
333: I liked the observation that if one removes the vowels, the man's name is RNC PR BS
"[t]he test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."
I mean, in terms of moral and ethical content, I think this statement can be filed with the already twice-here-quoted, powerfully emetic Whitney Houston patter. It's obviously true in a "kicking puppies is mean" way, but when statements like this appear anywhere other than a coffee mug/bumper sticker, I take them more as a statement of ambivalence about adults and adulthood than anything else.
I don't think any of us here (maybe bob?) is so contrary a debater as to go all "Keep your brats out of my wallet! No taxes for oppressive breeders!"
We are childless, but live in dense blue-collar breederville, two blocks equidistant from three schools, two elementary, one middle. The H.S. is roughly 5 blocks away. Brats are ubiquitous. We don't think twice about the taxes.
I would go nuts in Yglesias SWPL-ville, with smug twenty somethings competitively bar and restaurant hopping til 3 AM. I hated it when I was in my twenties. Now that is noisy and uncomfortable. Judgmental pompous pricks. "Oh, look at her shoes!"
330: I didn't go there. You mean Middlebury? I lived in western Mass., the Pioneer Valley, at the time, after college, so driving up into Vermont to go to that great pub was doable. College was admittedly on the east coast, in Boston. I've been liberal arts all my life!
334: Initially Flipp was just pointing to hypocrisy on every side. In 112 and 306. It took some digging to make him say what animated him.
Further to 338, I'm a little puzzled, SB, since I thought I'd said before where I went to college. It's not very important, obviously, but there's no indiscretion error in the vicinity.
Man, part of me is so wary of getting in on this thread...
Fuck it!
So the thing I find annoying about the occasional unexpected child isn't that the kid is likely to be annoying - mostly kids are cool, only rarely do they suck (some DO suck, sorry) - but that I feel suddenly...restricted in what I can say or do. I tend to curse a lot; I frequently say offensive things that I find funny; in short, left to my own devices I often engage in behavior or language that many parents might object to in the presence of their children. (I am not the helicopter mommy's friend.) And while I normally grit my teeth and try to watch myself, I've been with people who don't, or I've slipped up, and I have to say that in those situations more often than not there seems to be a social consensus that I (or my friend) was out of line.
And that is what I have a problem with. If you want to bring your kids out into the real world, more power to you. But the expectation that I will significantly modify my behavior* in order to accommodate other people's children really bugs me, just as the imposition of any obligation without my consent bugs me.
This is also why I'm generally uncomfortable with kids unless I know their parents really, really well -- I like kids, and I like hanging out with kids, but only when I get to treat them like little people and have real conversations with them. You know, be normal. If that's not allowed, I have no idea what I'm doing, and I get really anxious.
That said, it's not cool to keep a screaming kid in a theater just because you've learned to block it out. I have a hard time imagining anyone really objects to the idea of removing a kid from that situation. It's about the same as leaving your cell phone on, no?
*Obviously I don't hang out in playgrounds, or other kid territories. I'm thinking more about situations that aren't designed to be kid-centric.
Oh, obviously 341 only applies within reasonable limits. Like, if you see a kid about to do something dangerous while his parents' backs are turned (I'm thinking of one enterprising young toddler I caught - caught - as he was running towards a really angry swan), don't, you know, let him. Basic people stuff.
339: I missed 112 earlier, but I would have read it as saying exactly what I wrote in 334 that I thought he was saying. The last play I went to, none of the kids there created any disturbance. The adults chattering behind me and crinkling their effing cheetos bags, on the other hand... But there's often an inclination to be more tolerant of irritating adults than we are willing to give children.
307: If one wants to make a case for parents' rights including bringing unwilling, unhappy, tired children to places those children don't want to be, that seems to be the real issue here. The only reason the child is making things unpleasant for other people is that she doesn't want to be there and is there against her will.
Generally, I'm on the side of thinking that there should be some places where adult behavior is required, and kids who can't comport themselves in an adult fashion shouldn't be there (like, say, a play). So I'm not disagreeing with you about how people should behave, mostly.
But claiming that the only reason kids behave in annoying ways is that they're unhappy, so keeping them out is really for their own sake, not yours, is nonsense. Sometimes a kid being annoying is unhappy because they're in a place they don't want to be, sometimes they're unhappy but they'd be unhappy anywhere, and sometimes they're just being loud and exuberant. Keeping kids out of an adult-only environment is a courtesy to the adults, not automatically kindness to the kids.
341: Yeah, maybe this is why I fall so easily on the other side of the debate -- I don't for a second expect anyone to modify their behavior just because Rory is around. Hearing an occasional expletive or dirty joke isn't going to kill her. Parents who want their children sheltered from particular behavior or language should not bring their children into spaces where they might encounter such conduct or language.
But I really would not welcome a culture where there is literally no place but my own house where I can expect people to try to be quiet.
I was recently told by a cow-orker that it's very American expect to find public places where people are quiet, because our population density is so low. I'm skeptical.
Then, this is one of those cow-orkers I've mentioned before who will happily say that everyone's lunch is disgusting because Americans don't know how to cook.
I should preview more often: "... very American to expect..."
I'm thinking about places we've taken Mara that we probably shouldn't have and not coming up with much. Art museum was on a Tuesday morning or something and she was great, if a bit chipper in her narration. She whined a bit at a restaurant on New Year's Eve (6 pm) and we thought about leaving, but took her outside and talked her down and then let her eat all the crab bisque once she was happy again.
I know she's heard plenty of language I'd try to keep away from her while she's at this repeat-all-she-hears stage, but the only time I've intervened was today at our friends' house when the mom said, "Oh, Mara, you're so cute I just want to KEEP you!" While that may be what she'd say to any kid, but you just can't to a kid with an attachment disorder who's been just dropped off places in the past. So I said, "Oh, no, Mara's staying with us, her moms, but I'm sure she can come visit and play again sometime soon!" And that was for Mara's benefit as much as hers; I know she meant nothing by the comment.
And 341 and 346 are right on. A big part of the argument with Kriston was that he felt harassed by the presence of kids on the patio of his bar because he felt as though he was expected to be on good behavior around them. And any parent who has brought their kid to a bar who gives someone there a hard time about generally bar-appropriate behavior is way, way out of line. There are bars where I'd bring a little kid, but if I were unhappy about the environment the solution would be to leave, not to try to alter people's behavior.
345: I may be alone in this, but (with exceptions for late-night theater and movies) I don't mind kids as long as they're happy. Being loud and happy doesn't bother me. The thing that really really makes me insane is that intense distress signal that means "please do something to improve my unhappiness right now."
352 cont'd: ...which, in case it needs repeating, is not my childfree loathing of childnoises speaking, but a gut-level instinct that says something really terrible is going on and it needs to be addressed WHY IS IT NOT BEING ADDRESSED?
Americans appear not to know how to cook, precisely because we expect it to be so quiet. Everyone stops the microwave early to avoid hearing the beep.
346:Didn't tell this one. So I am at the park on a Sunday afternoon and the female dog is intimidated when I go rage-mode so she is laying on the grass while I am screaming at lungstop from the bank at the male dog in the lake chasing the huge white duck. About twenty-feet out, damn if I am going to swim out there. He would catch the duck, it would slip out, land ten feet away. I do not understand why it didn't fly off. Twenty feet away would have discouraged him enough.
And I am going stark ravers on the bank, because he will kill it if I don't stop him. Screaming begging pleading anything to get his attention. My language got apocalyptically salty. My tone was homicidal. I became unconscious to my surroundings until I look around and behind me six mothers had brought about 15 grade-schoolers to sit on the bank and watch. Texas?
As the dead duck floated away and guydog swam to me with feathers and blood on his mouth, we ran away from the multiple felonies I thought I had perpetrated.
354: Stanley, if American public places weren't so noisy, I wouldn't have to get my quiet at home! Seriously, I do that. And if I have to have an alarm, I get up before it to turn it off. I'm just not a beep fan, I guess. (I know I must be setting up some sort of pun here. Sorry, all.)
352, 353: Do you really hear that level of distress often in public places? Not grousing or whining, but 'intense distress'? And without a parent or caregiver doing something about it?
Everyone stops the microwave early to avoid hearing the beep.
I totally actually do this.
Recently I've had a number of troubling/downright scary interactions with dogs in public spaces. My increasing discomfort* with dogs - especially off-leash dogs - in public spaces combined with some friends'** screeds against anti-dog people wanting to restrict dogs in public reminds me of this debate. (No analogies being made, they're obviously not the same thing.) And then I found $5.
* I still really like dogs and am happy to pet/play with/etc your dog. I've just started getting way more initially wary when I see them in public.
**with incredibly well-behaved dogs, and who themselves are insanely personally responsible pet owners
357: Sure. Just Friday night I was out with Smearcase and there was a 3 or 4yo at this fancy pizza place who, with no buildup at all, would shriek at the very top of his lungs periodically. In that scenario I'd say it was our fault since we had an early dinner, and, aside from the shrieking, the kid wasn't being awful or running around hitting people. But yeah, that noise makes me jump out of my skin. It's like a "someone is scraping my skin off right now" sound.
359: I'm totally a dog person and I very much do not like strange, leashless dogs (whose owners are generally not within grabbing distance) running up to my leashed dog. And all my dogs have been creampuffs. My brother, whose dog didn't really like other dogs, really hated when leashless dogs ran up while the owner assured him that their dog was nice. "Uh? Mine isn't?"
358, 361:Unleashed Dogparks 5-10 times a week. People learn things. Rarely, very very rarely something gets hurt, but it does happen.
But obviously we get used to strange dogs interacting with ours in playful or competitive ways.
360: Okay, that sounds maddening. But a series of bloodcurdling shrieks with intervals of silence it also doesn't sound like a kid in terrible distress, it sounds like a kid behaving badly. You're perfectly entitled to be annoyed by that (and depending on the circumstances, I'd probably think the parents should take the kid home), but you don't have any reason to think that the kid would turn into a contented, happy, well-cared child if he just weren't in a pizza place.
I think dog parks are a brilliant thing. Is it just my imagination or are they largely the product of the last 15 year or so?
I second 359. Recently was witness to some dog-park playfighting (that fortunately stayed innocent) that involved three large pit bulls ganging up on a collie or golden retriever, with the owners calling out ineffectually for them to lay off over and over. After the pit bulls had reduced the other dog to laying on it's back yelping, they headed back to the owners pretty much on their own accord. The owners then praised them, ostensibly for finally obeying their commands to come, though this was pretty transparent self-deception. Any sense that they were aware they had no control over three large dogs and that this might be a problem was notably absent.
Oh, possessive its. I hang my head, ashamed.
365: Hm, maybe less brilliant than I had thought. Obnoxious people are everywhere!
I hang my head, ashamed.
Thus signaling to the big grammar dogs that you are submissive and they don't have to attack.
365:Some dog owners can present problems. Often they are the kind to get pitbulls, but not always.
There are regulars who police and set standards at our parks. Pit bulls are watched very carefully, but they are usually ok. Pit bulls or other dogs that are kept on leashes in the park are kicked out instantly.
What was described is not necessarily play. Dogs get mounted or downed all the time. Normal pack behavior, the hierarchy gets established, no harm is done.
There separate parks for "small" dogs, but the bigdog park runs 30-150 pounds, so have to keep an eye.
360: It is perhaps worth noting that neither of us glared at the parents, sued the restaurant, murdered the child to make Original Recipe Matzoh, or in fact did anything beyond exchanging a look of "ow, my ear."
353: Kids recognize that adults have this reaction, and use it to their advantage. At some point, the parent has to stop rewarding the behavior by responding.
Also, apparently yelling at the top of your lungs is the most fucking thing in the world. My daughter was asking about thunder today, and I was explaining that thunder is just a noise that lightning makes, and that lightning makes the loudest noise of anything you're likely to hear. She exclaimed "I can be louder than that!" and immediately demonstrated that she was completely correct.
372 is so fucking correct my head hurts.
371: Depending on how bad it was, you might have been perfectly justified in shooting the parents a dirty look, or asking them to leave if the kids couldn't keep it down (that'd have to be pretty bad in a pizza place, but not inconceivable). All I was saying is that finding that sort of shrieking unpleasant is reasonable, but thinking that the child's wellbeing is necessarily going to be improved by removing them to someplace you can't hear them is ill-founded. Be annoyed on your own behalf, rather than on the kid's.
She exclaimed "I can be louder than that!" and immediately demonstrated that she was completely correct.
She was not correct. I would be impatient with your child, and bring her out to hear serious thunder (and lightning) when it happens. You can't scream louder than that, sweetheart, so get used to it. That's the planet speaking.
368- Blog pack dynamics explained by essear, the Nosflow Whisperer.
367- I'd definitely say a brilliant thing, on average. The better ones tend to be a bit more communal and self-policing. Word gets around if there's someone who can't control their dog.
I look around and behind me six mothers had brought about 15 grade-schoolers to sit on the bank and watch
Oh how I hope and pray that one of them had a video-capable phone and a YouTube account.
370: Ketchup on hot dogs (well, veggie dogs in my case) is right and proper. She's off her gourd.
The thing that really really makes me insane is that intense distress signal that means "please do something to improve my unhappiness right now."
in general, the screechy noise is the "gimme thing! want thing! or something! christ it's frustrating being small and unable to impose your will on the world". The pain or distress noise is lower-pitched and actually less pain-causing. That's why parents have much more tolerance for the objectively worse noise. Little Gothella is currently going through a right vein of form with the high pitched screech. (I took Napoleon Adolf hunting with hawks today, carrying his new "proper" knife now he is a big nine year old boy. It is really strange that you only have to drive twenty miles out of London and you're in actual countryside where this is regarded as normal behaviour rather than strange worrying Welsh caveman stuff. I think the falconer actually has a vote for Mayor of London).
In answer to the head post, the two-babysitter thing is the only viable option. But the most important piece of advice is to make sure that your dear friend knows how much inconvenience you're going to support her. People without babysitting problems never understand. They never understand. And also, people in shows develop a kind of tunnel vision whereby they just don't realise that seeing them might be difficult for anyone else. As the old song has it "There's No People Like Show People, They're Annoying Emotionally Needy Bastards!"
375: Because nothing corrects a small child's behavior so well as pointing out scientific facts.
You can't scream louder than that, sweetheart, so get used to it.
So very obviously not a parent, parsimon. Set up a competition and the little screamers will compete, regardless of whether they stand a chance of winning.
Can anyone here recommend a linear programming solver
the general-purpose solver add-in built into Excel is actually very good and was written by people who seriously knew what they were doing. If your linear system is too big to be dealt with in Excel or by a call from VB, then I am a bit worried you're asking, and for christ's sake check those rubber O-rings.
You can't scream louder than that, sweetheart, so get used to it. That's the planet speaking.
YEAH I CAN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH AAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE SEE PARSIMON? HEY THUNDER BET YOU CAN'T BE LOUDER THAN ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHH
Okay, pwned, but apo and I are coming from the same place here.
370: Are you kidding me? No. You are wrong. Ketchup on a hotdog is wrong.
Set up a competition and the little screamers will compete
I tried to harness that by playing the "quiet game" (who can keep their yap shut the longest), but it didn't work that well. He lost in about ten seconds and then took to screaming about how he really won for some unspecified reason.
380, 381: Set up a competition and the little screamers will compete, regardless of whether they stand a chance of winning.
Oh, I know. I was mostly teasing the little screamers. I'd be inclined to take them out to a blustery wind-tossed rocky beach somewhere and say: have at it! Let's scream! We're totally going to lose, but maybe we'll collapse in exhaustion eventually and go home and snuggle in the end.
There's probably a right and a wrong age to do this. I wouldn't want to be premature.
But a series of bloodcurdling shrieks with intervals of silence it also doesn't sound like a kid in terrible distress, it sounds like a kid behaving badly.
No, that's just it. It SOUNDS like a kid in terrible distress. It IS a kid behaving badly.
This seems to be a situation like the Wall Street executive bemoaning getting 99.8% of all he could possibly want. The kid has to act like a sociopath because of the interests of the shareholders his yet-to-be-repressed instincts.
385: I realize I part ways with the majority of my fellow Chicago natives on this preference.
Word gets around if there's someone who can't control their dog.
I have been embarrassed by lack of dominance alpha-male stuff by people who can't keep their kids for screaming at Long Day's Journey
Look the dogs are kept on leash when there are people around. Animal control is a cellphone away, and they pay for themselves partially with tickets. I walk them five miles around the parks and let them into a lake or crick with leashes on. There are no people in the lake, and they wet down and come back. 99/100 no problem.
They remain a little wild and chase critters. It's their only flaw. They are not particularly interested in people, big or little, and I have no qualms about toddlers approaching them and climbing on their backs and pulling their ears. These dogs run, not snap or growl. I keep them on leashes mostly because people get scared, not because I ever get scared. And cars and stuff, dumb dogs.
And the critters (never dogs of any size, chihuahas are safe. Cats not so much.). They are hunter-killers.
387: Isn't that how Demosthenes trained? You might be responsible for turning kids into politicians and lawyers.
391: We used to have an old spaniel who was lethal despite being at least 15 pounds too heavy (table scraps from us kids). She'd get birds constantly and mice also. The rabbits learned to stay out of her fenced yard, except they'd forget after a few years. Cats always made it to a tree (unless they didn't and dad buried the evidence).
392: CPS would have your ass if you made a kid practice his speech around a mouthful of pebbles.
391- This is an off-leash park I'm talking about, bob, all that is understood. I certainly wasn't thinking of you or yours in my remarks.
392: Isn't that how Demosthenes trained?
Is it? I have no idea. The thought wasn't any kind of training at all. Just a mutual experiencing of the world. I mean, I understand kids' frustration: they're little, they don't quite understand things and it drives them crazy, and they're trying and trying, but things elude them. I thought bringing them out for a scream-fest might alleviate some frustrations.
By the time we become full-fledged adults, we don't even allow ourselves a scream-fest now and then. I think we should all go out to the seaside, rocky wind-tossed coast preferred, and yell a bit.
In a less dramatic fashion, we can just go camping or something. By the sea.
they don't quite understand things and it drives them crazy, and they're trying and trying, but things elude them
This was my afternoon today.
I mean, I understand kids' frustration: they're little, they don't quite understand things and it drives them crazy, and they're trying and trying, but things elude them.
My theory is a little different. There are quite a few things that they do understand -- sometimes better than big people. But getting the big people to listen to them as if they are people worth being taken seriously can be a challenge. Believe me, I've wanted to scream when I've felt like nobody would listen to me.
398: What age younger person are you thinking of? A three-year-old? Five, or seven, or nine?
Sure, kids understand various things that adults are invested in avoiding, and the adults refuse to listen to what the kids might have to say. Sometimes that's a very serious matter. Sometimes it's not.
My daughter screaming is also the planet speaking.
397: That sounds like every day since I hit puberty.
386: I've tried the "quiet game", with similar results.
400: As long as you know which planet, you're ahead of the game.
By the time we become full-fledged adults, we don't even allow ourselves a scream-fest now and then. I think we should all go out to the seaside, rocky wind-tossed coast preferred, and yell a bit.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
OT: Regarding Lawn Darts @ Patriots, I am not ready for some football. I am ready for all the football.
Also, it will be a cold day in July before I accept a comparison of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Whitney Houston.
404.last: So, anybody from Pantagonia feel free.
of course nearly all of this problem is a result of the regrettable human tendency to seethe and grind teeth rather than saying something at the time. "Could you shut your kid up please?" "Dream on, this is Pizza Express at lunchtime mate", job done. "No, my toddler is a human being just like you" "Don't be silly, this is a production of 'The Caretaker', sling your hook", also job done. It really isn't as difficult as we all make it seem.
(This concept also applicable to the pregnant and/or old people who write letters to the newspapers bemoaning how everyone on the Tube is too engrossed in their newspapers or iPads to notice them and give up a seat - did you ask love?)
399: Yes, all of those ages. Kids have great thoughts and love nothing more than to be listened to and treated as if they are interesting. Much like the rest of us, come to think of it. Rory's very much her mother's daughter and has always taken very badly to being talked down to.
This concept also applicable to the pregnant and/or old people who write letters to the newspapers bemoaning how everyone on the Tube is too engrossed in their newspapers or iPads to notice them and give up a seat - did you ask love?
Asking for a seat on the subway is really socially difficult. I've done it once in my life -- I was sick, and started feeling as if I were going to pass out -- and making the request was one of the hardest things I've ever done (first person I asked got up for me, no problem). I don't think I've ever seen anyone else actually ask for a seat.
I don't quite understand why my inhibitions on this are so strong, but they are, and I think that's pretty common.
If pregnant women have to ask for seats on your local means of mass transit, your town could use a quiet afternoon to reflect on its priorities.
I had a student who mentioned that it seemed like a big difference between NYC and London subway etiquette. He had a cane for several months due to a knee injury, and in NYC, people just offered him a seat every day. When he went to London, no one noticed. Once, he asked someone for a seat and they were fine with it, but no one ever volunteered their seat.
I think NYers are mostly OK with giving up a seat if you ask nicely, but I've only done it once, for my mom who was in town. The few times I've seen someone duck into a seat quickly, trying to block a pregnant or elderly person who was slow getting to it, the rest of us have jumped up to offer ours while saying something about assholes.
345
But claiming that the only reason kids behave in annoying ways is that they're unhappy, so keeping them out is really for their own sake, not yours, is nonsense. Sometimes a kid being annoying is unhappy because they're in a place they don't want to be, sometimes they're unhappy but they'd be unhappy anywhere, and sometimes they're just being loud and exuberant. Keeping kids out of an adult-only environment is a courtesy to the adults, not automatically kindness to the kids.
It's not the only reason but it is a common reason. My parents used to drag me to things like symphonies because they thought it would be good for me. This was a bad idea all around. I definitely didn't want to be there and behaved badly. And the end result was to reinforce in me a visceral loathing for "culture".
407: I think there is a certain breed of New York mommy that you might not be familiar with.
409: I don't imagine having such a problem with this, but you know what makes me instantly insane? Those dudes who purposefully stretch out across two seats during rush hour in a crowded car. It's so...I want to say passive aggressive, but I'm not sure that's right. There is definitely an aura of defiance, like, fuck you, I dare you to say something. It drives me crazy, and they are invariably - invariably - much bigger than I am.
Which, actually, come to think of it, would probs be an advantage. If I were large and male they might actually respond physically. If they were physically attack or threaten me, a smallish woman, they'd lose even if they won.
So, resolved: I should call those guys out on being dicks.
(I have, of course, quite often asked someone to move a bag or knee that could obviously go somewhere else.)
Also, I would say 411 is more common. There are these isolated assholes though.
413: I do it pretty often. On the one hand, if it's a genuinely big guy, I see the spreading out as sending a message that if he tried to take up one seat, we would all be miserable. But especially when it's some skinny dude spreading his legs really wide to air out his balls or whatever, I'll just smile sweetly and ask to sit next to him. Mostly people are friendly enough about it. The worst, though, is when you sit next to one of those guys and he practically throws his leg over yours to make sure you know his balls really need that fresh air. Ugh. On a sweaty summer day? I'd rather stand.
413: I frequently ask people like that to move over as a matter of policy. It's less defiance, and more of a recognition that they'll usually get away with it. It's easy to rationalize with "well, nobody asked me to move."
410: Sorry, I feel like I'm having Contradict Flippanter Day and I am a little afraid of looking like a jerk, but I think you kind of missed the point of what was said: people don't always hang onto their seats because they're inconsiderate; they maybe just aren't always looking around to see if anyone needs a seat. I mean especially if we're talking about commuting hours. I know I settle into my seat, often put on my headphones*, do my crossword on the phone, and do not spend a lot of time looking to see who's getting on the train. I have been known to give up my seat, but I'm sure I've also missed the sight of someone who needed a seat sometimes, and once in a while I have a regrettable moment where I'm tired and feel like it's someone else's turn and wait for someone else to volunteer. If asked, I would of course give up my seat.
*not because I need music at all times so much as because I don't like hearing other people's music, and also half the time I end up on the train where the conductor says AT EVERY STATION in a buttery how-you-doin' inflection "Good morning! This is a downtown A exp......erience" and the first time it was funny and now it drives me right up a tree. So I need headphones.
Oh, yeah, those guys I'm not inhibited about asking to move at all. I stay polite, but make a point of taking up my full share of the seat.
+1 on the people-who-spread-out-over-several-seats thing. I've gotten more assertive about just saying "excuse me" and looking at them like "I'm sitting down now whether on the seat or on your lap" or sorta just going for the seat. New York has, for better or worse, made me more assertive. I can scream "fuck you" at a stranger now far more convincingly than I could before I moved here. It doesn't sound nearly as shrill as when I first got here. I'm not even kidding.
Contradict Flippanter Day
Those of us who aren't racist think of this as Erev Martin Luther King Day, but suit yourself, white supremacist.
It seems unfair to put a burden of asking on the pregnant/old/visibly loaded with luggage person who should be given a seat as a mater of courtesy and decency. But what do I know, I drive a car, like Jesus intended. One's balls can be as aerated as one likes, and the shrieks of a child are comfortably shielded from others.
Those dudes who purposefully stretch out across two seats during rush hour in a crowded car.
I always sit next to that bloke. He then gets the choice of returning to normal posture, getting in my face, or sitting for the next few stops with his thigh pressed up against mine. Very few choose anything other than option 1. It's one of the advantages of being a biggish lad myself.
Yes, the convention on the Tube is that you don't talk, and you read your newspaper (free newspapers are provided for those who haven't brought one). I try to keep an eye out for the old and infirm, but I don't think it really says much about my city's priorities that other people don't and I don't always succeed myself. Asking "excuse me, could I sit down" - it really shouldn't be that hard. The darling Mrs Digest managed it every time she was preggers, but then she's a rather uncommon woman.
421- In Wisconsin, it's Erev Martin Luther King Day dot com.
I've gotten more assertive about just saying "excuse me" and looking at them like "I'm sitting down now whether on the seat or on your lap" or sorta just going for the seat.
This is what I do. And if the legs start spreading again (which they almost always do), I do a little shove with my hip that (just) has plausible deniability as "settling into my seat" and make sure I have my arms at my sides and not folded on my lap, etc.
Most of the time it seems that folks fairly leap from their seats to give them to pregnant women (sorry, old people!). These folks are almost always women too.
This is a downtown A exp......erience
I love that guy. Just that he's in his own little world where the quality of the announcements is making everyone on the train a bit happier. He's wrong about that, of course, but there's something about committedly deluded people.
Contradict Flippanter Day
If I were going to chip every thought into a perfectly agreeable form for fear of contradiction, I'd be ... I don't know, somebody like Michael Chabon, and I'd have bored myself to death by now.
These folks are almost always women too.
Not my experience. Minority teenagers and young men when I was pregnant. White men basically never, white women sometimes, minority girls and young women would look around the subway car for a young man of their own ethnicity and point out loudly that he should be getting up for the pregnant lady, and the young men would get up with or without being harassed.
Of course, that may have been neighborhood dependent.
The only time I've seen a white guy get up for someone on the train is after another white guy refuses to get up for someone who asks.
426: I've sort of taken a pill about the whole thing but there was a while where, if I was on the downtown A exp....erience and didn't have my headphones, I'd start feeling really irritable and consider switching trains, because I couldn't stand the idea of hearing a not all that amusing joke twelve more times. (I never did, because after my stop, you may not get a seat, and you certainly won't get a prime seat, i.e. not sitting between two people.)
427: I'm glad you don't make all your thoughts agreeable. I was apologizing for being so up in yer face today rather than requesting you be less contradictable.
Huh, I see white guys give up their seats all the time. But, here on the UES, perhaps I just see way more white guys. (A very dear friend cannot even bear to sit pretty much ever, because he'd just feel honor bound to give up his seat the second there were no more.)
Yeah, on the uptown end of the A, if it were completely random I'd still be seeing a lot more minority guys getting up, so I could be being unfair to the white guys. Mostly, I remember noticing the teenage girls mau-mauing the teenage boys, because that cracked me up.
Not a lot of express trains or busses in my experience of the DC Metro. So it took mean long while to even register the joke that operator was making. I'm so provincial.
In my experience people on the bus get up all the time, especially for pregnant women. Not so much for old men. Maybe it's different from the train in that people don't start zoning out into their own world as if they were in a frictionless transport pod.
In fact there are tons of people who sort of pre-emptively stand up, that is, never sit down, but stand next to a seat, blocking it, preparing to let someone else sit there. They don't realize how much space they take up by doing this.
I don't know what Erev means, but I am preparing to enter an Eruv Martin Luther King Day tomorrow, in which Martin Luther King Day doesn't apply and I have to do really important stuff at work.
Awesome story someone told me about Virginia and racism: It wasn't until college (or med school? the one where she had to leave the state) that she discovered that that day in January when everything is closed is, in fact, Martin Luther King day. Apparently in Virginia, while they were obligated to close the schools and what have you, they insisted on calling it Robert E. Lee day.
She tells this story whenever anyone insists that Virginia isn't really "the South."
439: Then, for a while in the 1990s, they caved and graciously made it Lee-Jackson-King Day.
"Erev" is like "eve." and Virginia still does call it something strange. Lee-King-Jackson Day maybe.
I guess they officially changed the name, but I still hear it!
440: Er, I guess I have the chronology wrong. But still: we were shocked when we moved to Virginia from Chicago. Also: what do you mean you don't celebrate Casimir Pulaski Day?
I see we're not still arguing about kids in public. I like seeing dsquared in any case.
407: of course nearly all of this problem is a result of the regrettable human tendency to seethe and grind teeth rather than saying something at the time. "Could you shut your kid up please?" "Dream on, this is Pizza Express at lunchtime mate", job done. "No, my toddler is a human being just like you" "Don't be silly, this is a production of 'The Caretaker', sling your hook", also job done. It really isn't as difficult as we all make it seem.
It shouldn't be so difficult! There's a regrettable human tendency to seethe and grind teeth in order to build a grudge, or in order to play the victim, build an internal dramatic monologue, don the trappings of outrage to be shared, later, with others ("Can you believe what person X did? What a cad, I tell you!"). It's related to the drama queen impulse, perhaps.
443: Thanks to Sufjan Stevens, now people everywhere will know about it and associate it with death.
Hah. iPod autocorrects to Casinos Pulaski. Whisk is totes my mafia name.
I would always worry that by offering my seat I would insult that person's physical ability, so if it was at all crowded I would just stand.
Here's a tough, interesting knot: I distinctly remember being a child who couldn't very well abide disobedient, unruly, loud, or otherwise obnoxious children.
I remember figuring out that just because I could expect something from myself didn't mean I could expect it from others, that the golden rule cannot be mindlessly applied if you're in any way a statistical freak in your proclivities and preferences. I can guess that my somewhat severe disposition resulted from my mother's "let the child cry itself to sleep" method and from being an only child raised by a working mother (i.e. my will was either effected or it wasn't, there was rarely any direct contention between wills in the home), but I'm sure genetics has its role too.
TL;DR:
Kids don't even like other screeching kids.
Huh. Today's sports viewing produced an unexpectedly pleasant outcome.
449: odd. I don't recall any meteor strikes.
449: I dunno. I was sorta rooting for a Super Bowl XX rematch (Bears-Pats; Bears won).
451: My third grade teacher at hippie-dippie public school in MPLS put up a predictions chart for Super Bowl XX; he was the only person in the class to pick the Pats over the Bears.
Personally, in the matter of Jets v. Pats, I was rooting for Act of God.
Like sharks devouring the Jets.
453: I was three going on four. I do recall learning the Super Bowl Shuffle.
I supposed one day I'll meet dsquared for real and then I'll find out he can't possibly be that dreamy in real life, but still.
in addition to which mrs. digest surely has thoughts on the subject. which reminds me that when I saw my business partner she said she had had a horrible, involved dream about how I has started drinking again, and she talked to my husband about stopping me, but he said they couldn't do anything about it until I hit bottom, etc. I was royally fucking up our business by haranguing suppliers late at night, and issuing contradictory demands about what color things were to be painted. and I was cheating on husband x with my friend the secret agent guy (with whom I am having lunch tomorrow, for the first time in 4 months.) I was like, "did I say if the sex was any good? did I look all glowy?"
then in the meeting I chaired today this awesome old-timer guy who was visiting described how he had settled upon manhattans as his drink of choice back in the day, and another old woman said she had recently been in the room for a trivia quiz in which she was the only person who knew the ingredients of a manhattan! this prompted lots of laughter and reflection and so on, but was counterproductive in a way, because I thought, I can tell you what's in a fucking manhattan and jesus christ a good manhattan would be delicious about now. with nice big ice cubes, and a cherry that has been marinating in real maraschino, and some of them fancy artisianal bitters and what not. it's very rare that I find the concept of drinks tasty or tempting, generally my gorge rises as I contemplate them, but mmmmm, manhattans. so I had a triple espresso and consoled myself with the fact that every single mahattan poured in the city is probably vile, with livid fake cherries gleaming balefully from the amber depths. you non-alcoholics should go drink a good manhattan on my behalf, now-ish. get on it, people!
460. Reminds me of how at a meeting here a guy romanticized vodka so much that some people were moaning.
I stopped paying attention, since the outcome seemed foreordained, but holy shit! The Jets beat the Patriots? Is that possible?
The Pats need to fire Belichick. He just can't win the big games.
the pats should fire belichick just because it would make so many people so happy.
Do you know what are totally under-rated? Eurasian Eagle Owls. It's extraordinary. They are just fucking huge owls with a six foot wingspan, and you are allowed to own one and train it and just sort of have it as a pet (and use it for strictly no-nonsense rabbit control). They're absolutely amazing and they apparently only cost a couple of hundred quid, which is extraordinary when you think how much people pay for dogs.
I think that if this fucking market ever turns back up and I am allowed to start thinking about retirement jobs again, I will look into becoming what used to be known as a "princeling", buy up a few hundred hectares of Central Europe and ride around carrying a shotgun, with a fucking great trained owl on each shoulder. I will also brew my own beer.
By the way, I am sure that you will all be relieved to hear that the UK is no longer considered to be threatened by the Mongolian gerbil or the Himalayan porcupine.
being a princeling with hunting owls is only going to make you more dreamy, dsquared, I'm warning you.
When I lived out in Egham, I remember going for a walk along the Thames and suddenly seeing an eagle owl staring out of someone's garden. Freakishly huge, and I really think its value as home security would be up there with a vicious dog, if you can let it roam without it just buggering off.
As far as public kids go, I'm actually fairly libertarian on this; generally, institutions that hate children tend to have all kinds of other mean-spirited nastiness as well. Like the Conservative Party. This doesn't rule out me being grumpy about somebody's brat yelling in seat 34Z while revolving around the Heathrow stack for the foreseeable future, etc.
Regarding the Tube, and London more generally, there is a Filipina who works in a shop near me who is always very polite. I have to suppress the desire to say "Hey, you're in London now; you can be as rude as you want!"
I find London rudeness does still make me want to hit people, tbh. Behaviour that would certainly result in someone fucking you up [or making the attempt] in Glasgow passes without comment here.
I'M SORRY, WAS THAT YOUR FUCKING TOE, JOCK? WELL LEARN TO WALK FASTER THEN.
I have just realised that 464 might look a bit ridiculous, mainly due to my having no real concept of how big a hectare is. I mean a tract of land a bit bigger than a farm, but smaller than a nation-state. Say about the size of an outer London borough. With at least one small mountain. How much are they doing those for? mit or mit-out serfs, but frankly I'd rather mit-out.
re: 469
Heh, no, I get as annoyed by slow-moving fucks as anyone else. A certain amount of 'look, it's really fucking busy, and I'm in a hurry, and I don't have time to observe every last nuance of politeness' is fine. But some people just are fucking cunts about it, and more so than in other places. London driving is amusing, though.
mit or mit-out serfs, but frankly I'd rather mit-out.
But who will tend your vineyards if you're mit-out? (I'm assuming that the lower slopes of your mountain are planted with Gewürztraminer.)
Round where my wife's family are from I expect you can pick up a half-ruined 'hrad' pretty cheaply. There's loads of 'em.
a tract of land a bit bigger than a farm, but smaller than a nation-state. Say about the size of an outer London borough. With at least one small mountain. How much are they doing those for? mit or mit-out serfs, but frankly I'd rather mit-out.
What you want is a small Scottish island. Gigha went for about £4 million a few years back, but it may be too big for your purposes (5 square miles and 150 inhabitants). You would then be a laird rather than a princeling, but let's not quibble over terminology.
Also, if you can fit an eagle owl on each shoulder, you must have enormous shoulders. At least they'll keep your ears warm.
But you should really carry them on the gauntlet, which you rest on a special prop on your saddle to stop your arm getting tired.
On my most recent hawking experience, we were a bit too slow getting to the kill, and so weren't able to stop the hawk eating bits of it. The result was that the hawk not only got too full to want to hunt, but also too full to want to fly or even sit on the glove. We finished the day walking back home with the hawk walking along behind us on the ground, as though it were a terrier in disguise.
A bit of research reveals that the Vyrnwy estate in Powys, roughly the size of LB Hillingdon, mit-out serfs, would be £11m. But I'd need ten times that to even get to the size of Brycheiniog, which was basically the smallest and weakest medieval Welsh kingdom. Since that would be roughly the size of the Crown Estates, I'm guessing that this is not doable in Europe. If I took over As Trigon Agri for 1bn Swedish Kronor, I could be princeling of their currently owned 120,000 hectares, but that's about £100m which is likely to be outside the budget forever, also it's not a contiguous estate. I think this will remain a pipe dream as the only places I can find where you can buy that sort of land are Brazil (where the climate doesn't suit me) and Australia (which has quite restrictive laws on the ownership of raptors).
Also, if you can fit an eagle owl on each shoulder, you must have enormous shoulders
Good point. I really haven't thought this through.
OK, I see you've set your sights rather higher than I thought. Kingston's a bit smaller, only 10 square miles or so; you could probably get something like that for about £8 million or so. But I didn't realise you were actually aiming for kingdom-size.
I suppose you might be able to buy a lot of low-quality Canadian or American prairie fairly cheap... it's about $300 an acre last I looked.
The Duke of Buccleuch has about 110,000 hectares. So really quite a lot larger than Vyrnwy. No idea how much of that is contiguous, though.
Googling, it looks like his largest single estate is a mere 35,000 hectares or so.
if kids are more of a community affair, parents have to be ready and willing to relax some of their ownership. They have to be willing to let other members of the community speak to and interact with, possibly correct, their kids, or even speak to the parent-child relationship (I'm thinking of parents yelling at or yanking their kids around, and what a bystander is allowed to do or say in that circumstance). This is a serious barrier, I want to say logjam, in discussions of bringing kids into the wider community.
I think this is a very important point, which was further supported by donaquixote somewhere up there. Ok, just wanted to emphasize that.
It cost less than $20m to set up the coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, so there's another option for the "become princeling" objective - you could go James Brooke-style and become a White Rajah. Of course, even if it works you're only White Rajah of Equatorial Guinea instead of, you know, somewhere nice.
482. I think most people's objections to Equatorial Guinea are to the regime rather than the countryside. It would be nice to think that if Daniel became Rajah, things might look up a bit.
On the down side, African Eagle owls are rather smaller than the Eurasian species. Would a pair of these do instead?
Do you know what are totally under-rated? Eurasian Eagle Owls. It's extraordinary. They are just fucking huge owls with a six foot wingspan, and you are allowed to own one and train it and just sort of have it as a pet (and use it for strictly no-nonsense rabbit control).
Sigh. I really, really want a large bird as a pet, but that really has to wait until I'm ready to settle down on a particular continent, I suppose.
(Alameida, perhaps you could check local laws about acquiring one of these cuties as a pet...)
Also, by following D^2's link about threats to wildlife, I learned that: Earlier this month in Germany, four people had to jump into a skip when they were charged by a pack of wild boar while walking in woodland near the city of Darmstadt. Whoa.
I think you have to give up on "somewhere nice" quite early in the process, because if the land you're princeling of is remotely worth having, some other bugger is going to want to put all sorts of escheats and whathaveyou on it. If you look at the Vyrnwy estate, your £11m only buys you a 125-year lease. So you're effectively a feudal vassal of Severn Trent Water - obviously medieval nobles had the King to deal with (and "Braveheart" shows how icky freeholder disputes could get) - but I would have thought that the educated element among the local barbarians would spot that if you've got a freeholder to deal with, you're no princeling mate, you're a laird. That's how the Ancient Britons ended up bunched up in hedge-kingdoms in Wales and Cornwall, god knows it wasn't for the galleries or the concert season.
re: 484
Yeah, the boar thing always bothers me walking near my wife's village [northern Bohemia]. We come across places where they've been quite often. Although I presume they bugger off when they hear us coming, I am always wary, not having grown up anywhere where they live wild, of disturbing some.
Earlier this month in Germany, four people had to jump into a skip when they were charged by a pack of wild boar
Strange, I should have thought that a brisk run would have been a more effective gait, under the circumstances.
but I would have thought that the educated element among the local barbarians would spot that if you've got a freeholder to deal with, you're no princeling mate, you're a laird.
Depends. The Carolingians used to swap their chieftains around from one end of the empire to the other, to stop them getting above themselves. But if they came from the right families, they still regarded themselves as princelings. Pride of lineage, son. Also, the Vyrnwy estate is fucking beautiful, and if you took over the hotel on the Severn Trent reservoir as your principal palace, you could hang onto the chef by granting him rights of sockage and ullage, so you'd be well away.
I approve of this plan entirely, but I think the white rajah option should get more play. you'd have to bribe a whole lot of people but they'd all be cheaper than massive amounts of central europe. then with your own island you could do whatever the fuck you wanted. indonesia seems your best bet, though you could score big in myanmar--it would be a gamble. lots of serfs come along in the deal but I don't think you have to do much more for them than a roman senator for his clientes: kick bag 10kg of rice every once in a while and you'd be fine. plus they'll go fishing for you; someone has to.
489: This site is a bit dated (and is a sales pitch), but it seems to confirm my thought that the Philippines might be a place to find an island to buy.
The best place to shop: the 1,200-island Palawan chain to the west. "Half the islands are available to the highest bidder," says Edward Hagedorn, mayor of the provincial capital of Puerto Princesa. "The going rate is $1.90 to $3.80 per square meter, more after Asiaweek tells the world about them." He owns one himself. Only Filipinos can buy an island fiefdom, but foreigners can acquire one through a corporation 60%-owned by Filipinos. Or they can marry a Filipino national and buy in their spouse's name. There is no divorce in the Philippines.""As a symbol of great possession, the privately owned island may yet supplant even the steamship." predicted Dwight Macdonald, 1st issue of Fortune Magazine, 1926.
491: dsquared is already married, though, and not to a Filipina (I assume, though giving kids names like Napoleon Adolf suggests otherwise) so that might be tricky. And if you buy through a corporation 60% owned by Filipinos, do you really own the island yourself?
I think the white rajah option should get more play.
There are a couple of novels about this, neither of which makes it sound an entirely good idea.
They are just fucking huge owls with a six foot wingspan, and you are allowed to own one and train it and just sort of have it as a pet (and use it for strictly no-nonsense rabbit control).
I haven't researched this for a few years, but I believe that U.S. laws about trapping and keeping predatory birds differ from those in most European jurisdictions in certain key sending-people-to-federal-prison ways.
Surely if he can't stick the heat in Brazil, most of South-East Asia will be right out? There's a reason the Narnians call us ang mohs and it's basically because one of Raffles' original crew must have looked like D^2.
The Scottish option comes with tradition on its side - wouldn't be the first City laird by a long chalk - and some interesting features, like whisky, and best of all, the opportunity to provoke the Kirk with your outrageous and libertine behaviour (like using electric light on the sabbath, but still).
Have you considered the coast of Dalmatia? Pleasant Mediterranean climate, probably still reasonable pricing in Bosnia-Herzegovina and thereabouts. Supposedly Nick Griffin bought land there to hide out when the revolution comes.
...the opportunity to provoke the Kirk with your outrageous and libertine behaviour....
The original Kirk or the J.J. Abrams-rebooted version? Either way, I think we're talking about a high bar.
I think dsquared's going to have to settle for something like this.
497:
All you need is a flag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k
Have you considered the coast of Dalmatia?
Sadly long since gentrified - Robert Benmosche, the CEO of AIG, owns most of it. I am not a big fan of the white rajah thing though - go for it if you like, but I see myself as more of a barbarian chieftain in my dotage, plus the coming global financial apocalypse (ohsorrydintitellyou) is bound to make it inconvenient in all sorts of ways. Too hot, as well.
Places like Grimstadir, though, seem to come up quite regularly, and at USD7m+ for roughly a third of the area of Brycheiniog, I can just about see myself and my owls giving it some there.
see myself and me, my owls, and my giant prosthetic shoulders for them to ride on
I await the eventual reality show with fascination.
Sigh. I really, really want a large bird as a pet
I'd been meaning to tell you, trapnel: I'm just some dude in a suit.
I have some elves too apparently! Grimsstadir it is. All I need now is to find a British high street bank prepared to lend a lot of money to Iceland; how hard could that possibly be?
the prosthetic shoulders for the owls are really going to be what makes it. rrowr.
And if you buy through a corporation 60% owned by Filipinos, do you really own the island yourself?
well exactly; Princeling > Laird > Tai-pan
U.S. laws about trapping and keeping predatory birds differ from those in most European jurisdictions in certain key sending-people-to-federal-prison ways.
I think that it could be successfully argued that dsquared is entitled keep his enormous shoulder-mounted buboes on Second Amendment grounds, as he intends to use them for hunting and to scare people with, which are the two main justifications for allowing private firearm ownership.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms wings shall not be infringed."
Grimsstadir looks beautiful in a bleak sort of way. Once the climate change cranks up a bit it'll be rather nice.
Meetup for 2035?
Grimsstadir looks beautiful.
Maybe we should all pool our resources and create the island nation of Unfoggedia. It wouldn't be at all dysfunctional, right? (Highest number of lawyers per capita of any nation in the world!)
I am hoping that these fucking owls will spend a lot of the time flying around, by the way, if they just sat on my prosthetic shoulders[1] like puddings I would be sorely disappointed and consider asking for a refund. Jesus Christ, even my owls can't be bothered making an effort apparently. What a life.
[1]Actually I plan to be wearing armour most of the time, so I will simply ask one of the goblins who makes it to build a sort of perch arrangement into the shoulderplates. Or maybe (for ease of fitting through doors etc) they ought to be attached to the horse's barding or something.
I mean seriously, how many times do you need an owl when you're indoors? A gun is much better for that.
You don't bring them indoors. They don't use litter trays, you know.
I plan to be wearing armour most of the time
Definitely not Brazil, then, or any place equatorial.
In Iceland I would expect you to have more dealings with trolls than goblins, so you'll fit in nicely.
Guns don't kill people. War owls do.
Definitely not Brazil, then, or any place equatorial.
Believing that Northern Europeans can't fight while wearing armour in hot climates is the sort of mistake that you'd think people would learn from ...
Is this leading up to a pitch to buy gold?
Jesus Christ, even my owls can't be bothered making an effort apparently.
I see massive disappointment looming for dsquared when he learns that eagle owls are nocturnal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wdsE1UgP6k
Regarding Vyrnwy, you might be a vassal of Severn-Trent Water, but if you were to invest in a large quantity of something unpleasant and store it on your land, the relationship would be rather different. Yes, they could try to evict you or make you pay tribute, but you could render Birmingham's water supply undrinkable. It would be more of a stable balance of terror, which thanks to the stability-instability paradox pretty much lets you do what you want. You're basically a ginger North Korea in this scenario.
519. No, this is a massive commercial opportunity. Dsquaredia, wherever it ends up, will become the world centre for nocturnal hawking, with extreme sports freaks paying brazilions to trip over tree roots while their owls disappear into the darkness and are never seen again until they turn up at feeding time in the morning.
I would be much more enthusiastic about Dsquaredia if I weren't so sure that that the war owls would be trained to attack squatters like me.
re: 523
Sounds more like that job would allocated to children with knives.
If funds are short for the project, I'd think a crack financial mind like d^2 could rope in a corporate sponsor or two. For instance, Hooters would jump at the opportunity to set up operations in this imagined owl-rich provincial enclave.
With the economy as it is, before fully investing himself dsquared should try trudging through some local bog with, say, a pair of screech-owls.
You're basically a ginger North Korea in this scenario.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Nocturnal hunting is indeed a feature rather than a bug - I'm pretty insomniac myself; I ride by night, hunting hobbits (or Sigur Ros, as I believe they're called locally). Squatters have little to fear as long as they look a bit like my friends the goblins.
This is not a pitch to buy gold - money will not help you in the icy wastes of Hel, Norseman. In any case, we owl-carrying Germanic types have learned the lesson about getting too obsessed with gold from that whole dreadful Nibelung farce.
The idea of holding Birmingham hostage certainly appeals (we used to sing "Piss in your water/We're gonna piss in your water" to the tune of Guantanamero when visiting Midlands football clubs) but I'm sure it can't be as simple as that ...
526: I personally have enjoyed many a quiet evening standing in my back garden with a stuffed grebe on a stick.
before fully investing himself dsquared should try trudging through some local bog with, say, a pair of screech-owls
that was more or less what I was doing at the weekend. It was ace. They caught mice!
Now I'm jealous. I spent last weekend pacing around my home with a cat perched on my shoulders. And we didn't find any mice.
I am actually going to at some point try to sell Mrs D on the idea of a) moving to the mountains when we get older, and b) owning a bird of prey, hopefully an owl. I suspect that things may go better if I conceal from her any inkling that this might be part of a more elaborate and comprehensive fantasy life. Schtum, please guys?
You can run, you can buy owls, you can move to Iceland, you can hunt at night. But I will find you.
Germanic types
How is that reconciled with being Welsh? Shouldn't that be owl-carrying Celtic types?
Tarquin is what we call the (surely eternally renewed) enormous seagull who hangs out near us on the beach all summer divebombing our lunch.
523:
My understanding is that ballerinas are the most vicious creatures around.
In general, while I am happy to make use of micro-national distinctions in the service of picking ethnic fights with the English, I can also see the case for subsuming the Nordic, Celtic and Germanic races into the general category "white guys". If the Wiccans can bring "elemental forces" (attrib; Thales of Miletus) into a Northern Italian fertility cult while also giving themselves credit for Stonehenge and the Druids, then I'm damned if I'm being cheated out of my Wagner.
Dsquared:
Isnt your natural habitat Patagonia?
Big birds hunting toothy things--Central Asia version. There is a lot of actual footage after the intro.
re: 538
You can probably lump together Nordic, Celtic and Germanic into some sort of 'pale-faced, murderous and hirsute' category, anyway. No doubt has as much justification linguistically and genetically as any other.
I really really wish i had more people who said dickish things to me, like the "your meal is disgusting". perhaps i'm leaking this in some way through my presentation, and people pick up on it and so are never rude to me.
re: 540
One of the sci blogs linked to that recently, and the footage of the eagles taking fairly big deer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=milc4bq5AtQ
Deer looks like it ran into a wall.
I even eat lentil soup pretty often. THe closest i can think of was the [office maintancy] guy saying "could you close the [microwave] door" after i pulled my meal out. Which makes sense since it keeps the incandescent light on, but i thought about just ignoring him for .3 seconds
540: the comments are great, too: "OH SHIT!! just when you think that eagle comes down and gets jacked by the wolf, the SECOND EAGLE COMES OUT THE CUTS AND HAS THAT EAGLES BACK....straight puttin wolves in twister side control and shit"
re: 545
I can't speak for food, but temperature control is a constant source of conflict in my office.
Those eagles remind me of this i just saw last week
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNbqvqf3-14#t=2m46
I keep a fan under my desk and a water spritzer handy to keep cool. The landlord company banned space heaters.
Wolf hunting with eagles meets 'pale-faced, murderous and hirsute'*:
A former German military officer, F. W. Remmler, hunted wolves with eagles in Finland in the 1930s and later in Europe before moving to Canada. He trained his eagles first by turning them loose on children. The children were dressed in leather armor and covered with a wolf skin, and raw meat was strapped to their backs. When the eagles were used to knocking down the children for the meat, Remmler put them in an enclosure into which he loosed wolves bought from European zoos.*
1) Finland's not part of Europe?
2) It is unclear whether the loud noises that the children made indicated that they were unhappy to be there or not.
*from Of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez
HAHA i totally have that soundtrack music to "hunting wolves with a golden eagle in Mongolia" video somewhere on my music folde.r obviously i have no idea how to find it.
"The pub was arranged in long wooden tables -- your party would be sitting next to people you didn't know"
isn't this not a pub, but a "beer hall"? cool britania is so last centruy
temperature control is a constant source of conflict in my office.
Yep. This one cleaves along younger-people*/older-people** lines in my office. Old people want it way too warm, or I drink too much coffee. Or both.
*under 35ish
**over45ish
546: That comment makes more sense once I realized Joe Rogan must have linked that video.
Our HVAC was all fucked-up and everybody but me had a space heater at their desk. You'd come in on Monday in the fall, it wouldn't be over 60. In the summer, it got over 80 if the weather warmed up quickly.
Various threats to the landlord were made and it is now fixed.
Tarquin is what we call the (surely eternally renewed) enormous seagull who hangs out near us on the beach all summer divebombing our lunch.
I once heard a commentator during an Australian Rules football match compare players scrambling for a loose ball to "seagulls on a leftover lunch."
straight puttin wolves in twister side control and shit
What does this even mean?
"twister side control" is a position in submission grappling, popular with followers of Eddie Bravo like Joe Rogan.
500: I think in 20 years we're going to have to nationalize all of the land owned by bankers, the way Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries or the French revolutionaries seized the property of the Church.
Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.
208: Can anyone here recommend a linear programming solver?
Depends on how big the problem is. For small, casual problems, this site has a couple of pretty good web-based tools (the Linear Programming Grapher for 2 variable problems, and the Simplex Method Tool for somewhat larger problems), plus a pretty good tutorial on the simplex method. For intermediate-size problems, I generally use LPSolve, which is free and comes with a graphical IDE, although the documentation is pretty skimpy. I've used it on problems (including mixed integer problems) of up to a few hundred variables with no problems; I'm not sure where it tops out. For large industrial-size solutions, I've used CPLEX on problems with up to a few million variables, with several hundred thousand integer variables.
(Note: Mixed-integer linear programming is known to be NP-hard, with typical heuristics having worst-case run times exponential in the number of integer variables. So neither of the above programs is guaranteed to be able solve all problems of such sizes; they just do a reasonable job on many of the types of problems I was running).
Sadly long since gentrified - Robert Benmosche, the CEO of AIG, owns most of it.
This has made me inordinately furious.
