we know that it's a drop in a bottomless bucket
That is an apt metaphor, but one potentially more heartening metaphor that may also fit is that it's a bunch of burning fuses that are igniting hidden bombs beneath the floor in a room where all unpunished men who have been sexually harassing or assaulting others are standing. They know the fuse was lit and then can see the bomb going off below the feet of some guys near them but can't know if the bomb beneath their own feet will explode. That is, more people than we know about must be having, if not second thoughts, at least a miserable time of it.
(I realize my metaphor didn't make anything more clear but I already typed it in so I'm not going to remove it.)
Sorry, that was analogies. Carry on.
Crap, I need to find time to read that, but I've already over-procrastinated for this morning.
One time on the subway, the man next to me wound his hand under my thigh and between my legs, as I sat there debating whether or not to stand up or scream because I didn't want to embarrass him on a full train. That's why, when an important writer took me to coffee, offering to help me find a new job, and asked if I'd ever fantasized about fucking a married man, I simply laughed maniacally, as if he'd just made a joke about a 65-year-old man who suggests to a 25-year-old woman that she fuck him during a professional coffee.
First, I have a terrible memory for cold retrieval of events that aren't linked to a specific point on my mental timeline.
Second, I have a very, very intense reaction like the one described above to take care of the other person when they're crossing boundaries - turn it into a joke that we're both on, do everything to not embarrass the other person, etc. It's only now coming into focus for me the degree to which I generally mitigate things for the other person.
The side effect of the intense mitigation is that it gets filed into my memory as this weird, unimportant thing that happened that one time, and makes it even harder to retrieve from my memory. So I nod in recognition at a lot of these stories, but only have a hazy sense of how it played out exactly for me, except in one or two egregious situations.
A lot of these stories flow from culturally valorized ideas about creativity and entrepreneurship. Somebody is seen as irreplaceable and there is no union or formalized HR department that could put a stop to things. Rearranging things so that you don't have to be the winner that takes it all to be valued would help.
and asked if I'd ever fantasized about fucking a married man
He should have asked for her views on "adulter-me". If you're trying to make a weak joke to provide plausible cover for hitting on somebody, you should go for a shitty pun.
Please, please, please say that last isn't from personal experience.
Nobody has ever hit on me that way.
There was a long stretch of that Traister piece that had me thinking of slavery, how everyone is complicit, even if you're against it, even actively so, it's just so embedded in our society that just living and working in it makes one a participant.
That wasn't written very well but I think you get the point.
Traister links Taibbi's apologia on Facebook. It's not clear to me exactly what he is apologizing for, but it's an interesting document.
I am taken aback by how much work it is to be so repeatedly confronted by flashbacks and old trauma. It's exhausting and half the time my reaction to seing more articles about it all is irritated avoidance. Where's my trigger warning?
They know the fuse was lit and then can see the bomb going off below the feet of some guys near them but can't know if the bomb beneath their own feet will explode.
John Scalzi has a (very good) post that's related to that idea. (Also, like JRoth, I want to read the article linked on the OP but haven't yet).
There's a guy at work who is pretty darn worried these days, ha ha ha! He only made mildly gross comments to me, but i suspect I'm far from his only target and also i long ago mastered the don't mess with me thing so likely he was waaaaaay worse with other women. Enjoying his discomfort, yes indeedy-do.
Do you have five orange pips and an envelope?
We've been focusing - reasonably - on women in the workplace, but I hope this bout also helps us stop giving stars an implicit pass for domestic violence. Sean Connery, Sean Penn, plus Johnny Depp who still has an active career; I'm sure many more.
Was I right in getting the impression when Charlie Sheen "fell" a couple of years ago that it was more about his substance use issues becoming unignorable than about his DV?
15: Agreed. Some people have asked how I've dealt with it, and the answer is...I don't know? I think I've just shit down emotionally?
It doesn't help that the Roy Moore thing is similar (but milder) to what happened to me.
7: "formalized HR department"
HR works for the company, and very often more so for the bosses than for the masses. Just in case anyone needed reminding.
14: That was the first I'd heard of Taibbi connected to the ongoing scandal of sexual harassment/assault accusations. As best as I can tell, he's responding to complaints about stuff he wrote in a book called The eXile. Accounts of harassment and assault that were sort of presented as nonfiction, but he assures us they were fiction.
Lots of surprises in his statement. My first one was as early as the fifth paragraph. "I continue to deny absolutely that I have ever sexually harassed anyone..." He better hope the details he goes into later are 100 percent correct, if someone does come forward he'll really be in trouble, because, hell, I couldn't make that statement myself.
21
I think I've just shit down emotionally?
This sounds painful. (Sorry.)
Was I right in getting the impression when Charlie Sheen "fell" a couple of years ago that it was more about his substance use issues becoming unignorable than about his DV?
He insulted in an anti-Semitic way the producer of his show -- IIRC.
I read the Vanity Fair article about the eXile a few years back, when one of the former eXile writers returned to CA and tried to write about water for a while. I've been leary of Taibbi every since, although it is so delightful to have him pointed at your enemies.
My take is that Taibbi is a fucking coward for trying to have it both ways. According to the Vanity Fair article, he and Ames loved the lawlessness of being an ex-pat in Moscow in the 90s. Since I hate ex-pats, I was totally ready to believe in that. They savaged and humiliated everyone around them, including women, and since they're straight, that included sexually savaging them. I think he rose on that attitude and power, and fuck him for now trying to say that really, he belongs with the civilized people. It was all farce, back then, says he. Fuck that, and fuck his cowardly 'can't you recognize satire?'.
24: Okay.
Christ, not a couple years ago as I thought from skimming Wikipedia. Looks like he lost that one series in 2011, and then got a new one the following year.
The patriarchy hurts men too.
I think he rose on that attitude and power, and fuck him for now trying to say that really, he belongs with the civilized people. It was all farce, back then, says he. Fuck that, and fuck his cowardly 'can't you recognize satire?'.
Here is Taibbi's previous, shorter apology.
I don't read either apology as claiming a satire exemption. I don't see him claiming any exemption at all. He offers youth and stupidity as excuses, but he acknowledges (in the second apology) that people can reasonably reject those excuses.
I hope readers can forgive my poor judgment at that time.
That's from the first, brief apology. And that's what it is: An apology.
Interestingly, especially the second time around, he doesn't seem to be claiming an apology exemption -- he's not claiming that one is automatically forgiven for bad behavior just because one apologizes and improves.
The comparison to Louis CK's lame apology - which was completely demolished by Cauterucci in Slate - was interesting to me.
The "satire exemption" he's claiming is that he wants people to believe that the eXile stuff was fiction, despite being published as non-fiction. Maybe it was, I don't have a strong sense, but he is straightforwardly saying "I published prose in which I said that I had sexually harassed and abused women as non-fiction. I now expect you to believe that those things I said about myself were untrue."
He's apologizing for having written nasty things, but he's also asserting his innocence of having done the things he publicly claimed that he did.
Taibbi may indeed have abused women (in fact, I'd put a good deal of money on it), but he did give the world the best review of anything ever.
I know someone (a real piece of shit) who claims to have "partied" with the Exile people in Moscow in the 1990s and also boasts about being an unrelenting sleazeball with them -- not claiming credit for harassment or rape (though it sure wouldn't surprise me) but more or less constant prostitutes, cocaine, etc. etc. Lots of complaints about priggish American women, etc. That's my insight into that milieu of dickheads.
It wouldn't surprise me at all that Taibbi refrained from actively harassing his staff and then exaggerated it in a nonfiction book to puff himself up. But that is because (and in fact this is 100% consistent with Taibbi's statement) he was in my more almost certainly more or less raping women outside the office constantly and openly -- which, of course, would also have affected the atmosphere inside the office. Fuck that worthless self-righteous piece of shit Taibbi in particular. "I'm a writer who grew up in public." Fuck you. I hope his career dies a quick and permanent death.
I'm trying not to do angry rants on the internet but I'll make an exception for that fuckhead. How dare he try to build a career as an insightful left wing whatever (also, and this is unrelated, I think he's a not that smart dude who rants, says I in the middle of a rant, but still) after pulling that shit. Fuck that guy completely and totally.
"Oh, but he dunked on Thomas Friedman once!" Fuck him.
I feel more positive about Louis CK's apology than many people do. I don't think he's finished yet, but it reads to me as parallel to things I've written as first attempts at apologizing. It sometimes takes two or three tries to get yourself to actually own whatever the stuff was, and if he stops here he hasn't done it. But I think it's possible that he's en route to a genuine and meaningful apology.
I don't care very much if that happens or not, and I hope he's talking to the women he harmed directly. But I didn't have as negative a reaction to it as many people seem to.
Taibbi is being an avoidant denialist jerk and I think a lot less of him than I would have if he had just not responded at all yet.
It sure would be nice if each time one of these guys got outed, a woman rose to prominence in his spot instead of another white dude, even if the next white dude in line was a good guy, just so that maybe the power imbalances would slowly shift over time. Oh well!
I am really, really pessimistic about all this changing anything. I just don't see how this wave of outing does anything but get forgotten by this time next year as That Time the Feminists Got Het Up and A Bunch of Dudes Had to Suffer.
In case anyone is inclined to half-believe that piece of shit:
35: If there's something that looks positive to me about this wave of stuff, it's that I'm not seeing any women in this round taking damage from having come forward. That is, if this turns into a tipping point where a lot more women don't think it's pointless to try to tell anyone what happened, and feel safe exposing wrongdoers? That'd be huge.
I only got about a quarter of the way in. That's pretty convincing.
it's that I'm not seeing any women in this round taking damage from having come forward
Yes. So far that is by far the most encouraging thing, and the thing that feels different. Let's hope it continues. Though I am also pessimistic about backlash/the long term.
That would be huge.
I keep running through scenarios, though, and bumping up against a wall in which society collectively says, "We were game to make an example out of a few prominent men, but this is getting out of hand. You literally expect all men who are serial harassers to step down? That's much too disruptive. Of course not" and then the backlash and protectionism when the accusations threaten to actually destabilize the status quo makes it no longer safe for women to speak up.
It sure would be nice if each time one of these guys got outed, a woman rose to prominence in his spot instead of another white dude
Michelle Wolf, on the daily show, had a similar reaction.
30: Ah - I hadn't thought of that. Taibbi's writing is so obviously in the tradition of Hunter Thompson that his description of his writing struck me as pretty straightforward and reasonable. I remember being surprised after reading "Fear and Loathing ... '72" to learn that "Ibogaine" wasn't a made-up drug. It certainly never occurred to me that Thompson was serious about Muskie being a user. Etc.
I suspect you'll find "Campaign Trail" in the nonfiction section all the same.
Halford's link in 32 points out that nobody has come forward. (Has anyone found "Kara"?) Obviously, we know that there are a lot of good reasons that people don't come forward -- going public is considerably more problematic than going to HR, and going to HR is often a bad move.
But if Taibbi really is a serial harasser, this was a bold move on his part:
I continue to deny absolutely that I have ever sexually harassed anyone in any office, here or in Russia. No woman anywhere has ever accused me of anything of the sort, and I am confident that my former co-workers will report (many already have) that I have never exhibited anything like that kind of behavior, at work or elsewhere.
One supposes that, in the current climate, there's somebody out there who feels he or she has nothing to lose and will have something to say.
backlash
I thought about this also, due to the court of public opinion deciding who is guilty, with serious crimes treated the same way as passive looking the other way.
The CEO of NPR has taken medical leave of absence while looking bad for not having responded quickly enough about a sexual harasser who reported to him. That shouldn't be a career-ending offense IMO. He wasn't an active participant in covering for Oreskes, who was apparently a serial harasser. I think he should have responded more aggressively to the earlier report that Oreskes was a problem.
I totally agree that this and a bunch of other things would probably improve with more women in charge. I guess I am saying that assault is different from harassment, which is different from passive inaction. Having PR-based consequences for all of these be equally serious seems bad
to me.
Assault with explicit threats, as with Weinstein or the newest Moore, is something different than being a serial creep. All of that said, having the guys who are worst be found guilty in the justice system would be a great step-- Cosby wasn't for instance. Passively looking the other way shouldn't happen either, and should have some unpleasant consequence if its proven.
Maybe this isn't the greatest thought to express now-- there are plenty of positive steps to take, both formally and informally, to make this better. Talking about degrees of complicity is maybe out of place, when degrees of damage to the women actually hurt or sidelined go unmentioned almost always.
Certainly the line of thinking "We can't lose this guy's unique talent" should end fast.
Or maybe, you idiot, most of the people he raped are Russians in Russia and may not feel safe coming forward. Glad your buddy dunked on Friedman! GFY.
Taibbi's apology may be true. Everybody else in the recent scandals have specific accusers. Would benefit from a newspaper investigation to nail down like Louis ck got
Kara is named on the Wikipedia page for The Exile. From Taibbi's writing, the only people who could complain about harassment or worse are Russian. I see no upside for her, and maybe none for the other women directly abused, into getting into a he said-she said argument with a middling famous shithead.
In other words, her silence is not dispositive of anything.
43- "in any office" takes nearly all of the teeth out of that claim. I guess restricting your harassment of women to social occasions (foreign countries? wild parties?) is marginally better than harassing women in every life context indiscriminately, but it's a slim margin.
Maybe the "at work or elsewhere" at the end of the qutoed bit means that he really is claiming to have never harassed any woman anywhere (and not just that none of his coworkers were witnesses). If that's the case, neat, but his fictional-non-fiction glorified and normalized really atrocious behavior anyway. I guess falsely claiming to have harassed a bunch of women because you think it's funny and it makes you look cools is marginally better than actually harassing them. Probably a slightly wider margin in this case.
If that's the case, neat, but his fictional-non-fiction glorified and normalized really atrocious behavior anyway.
Right. That's what interested me in the contrast between his apology and Louis CK's. If we assume Taibbi is telling the truth (a problematic assumption for reasons enumerated here) then it seems to me that he did a better job than Louis CK. He acknowledges the actual nature of the behavior that he confesses in a way that Louis CK didn't. (Or so I would argue.)
I mean, I didn't read Taibbi's pieces super closely, so I'm willing to be corrected. But he didn't sound to me like he was really acknowledging or confessing to anything- I thought he was saying "I didn't ACTUALLY do anything you guys, leave me alone and let me talk about my Important Grownup Book now."
Whereas CK seems to be saying "I know I fucked up and I haven't finished thinking through all the ways I fucked up yet."- which is not a full confession or an acknowlegement, either, but strikes me as being more real and more constructive.
51 - I really should get out of this because I am actually enraged, both at the guy and at you, in part because I'm pretty sure I know a participant in the horribleness, but -- what the fuck are you talking about.
Louis CK did a bad job, but at least he admitted to what he'd done.
Taibbi wrote a carefully-worded lawyer denial (I know one when I see one) which admitted to essentially nothing other than the obvious fact that he was a huge misogynist, which was admitted (despite being public!) only now because it is undeniable. "I continue to deny absolutely that I have ever sexually harassed anyone in any office, here or in Russia. No woman anywhere has ever accused me of anything of the sort, and I am confident that my former co-workers will report (many already have) that I have never exhibited anything like that kind of behavior, at work or elsewhere" is carefully worded to say exactly the following -- I do not believe any of my former coworkers will come forward with evidence of any crime. It leaves open the obvious, which is that he 100% did shitty stuff outside of the office and presence of his coworkers. Plus he wrote a purported non-fiction account admitting to being an unbelievable shit. So he admits what is undeniable, the misogyny, but also somehow also downplays it, while carefully lawyering over what his actual conduct was, 100% certainly after discussing with an actual lawyer.
Stop defending the asshole. Look at yourself n the mirror and get a fucking grip. Think about whether this is where you want to draw a line or get invested in an argument.
"evidence of any crime" s/b "evidence of sexual harassment" as opposed to what Taibbi most likely did, sexual assault or worse of non-coworker Russian girls outside of the office. Note that that sort of thing is carefully non-denied.
I know this isn't the point, or the main victim or anything. But since I read about the eXile years ago, I haven't gotten over how mean they were. They hit the Times bureau chief in the face with a pie filled with whipped cream and horse semen. For no apparent reason, except that he was not an outlaw partyboy expat.
And now Taibbi wants to be back in civilized society and not be held accountable for shocking assholery. But he still wants the "satire" cred from the eXile, somehow. Trying to skim the good parts of both societal positions makes him even more of a jackass.
Fuck making this thread about Taibbi.
Also, the Traister article is really good, and if you read to the end you might see "backlash" in a different light.
I'll bet Joss Whedon is now relieved his serial philandering came to light a few months ago (I don't recall anything about harassment at the time).
Since I hate ex-pats,
Hey!
Seeing more groping stories about HW Bush. Pre-wheelchair, latest a 16 year old. I almost feel bad for his spokesman.
I think we're going to start to see pushback soon about whether some of this was so bad, whether it really is a punishment-worthy offense, whether it was a different era three years ago and thus fine. Losing a few high-ranking white guys isn't so bad, but we wouldn't want to have to see that it's not just a few isolated, unfortunate events perpetrated by men with problems.
Before the last GHWB report, I was wondering if it wasn't just senility.
That ex-pat remark also pissed me off, but I assume Megan has some idiosyncratic definition of "ex-pat".
The ex-pats begin at the other side of the Squirrel Hill tunnel.
65: You're the bad kind of ex-pat that ruins it for everyone else. Barry and I are the good kind that are innocent victims here.
66 is in fact probably the appropriate American perspective.
Who am I kidding. I'm the bad kind, the kind of person who would write a comment like 66.
I assume Megan has some idiosyncratic definition of "ex-pat".
"Immigrant".
I am sorry: I really do not get this: "I'm going to grab the ass of a woman who is standing next to me because we are having our picture taken and she is all 'I am my smiley self right now', and so she won't screech and 'accidentally' give me a block eye with her elbow before saying 'I am sorry: you startled me'".
It is not that much fun. She will be annoyed. And she will tell other women that I am an asshole.
Seriously: even for a male sociopath, what is the upside here?
Do I just not think like a "normal" American male? Is there a "normal" American male sociopath here who can explain this to me?
71 not to 70. Or really to 69 except in my head.
70: I don't think it's about fun. I think it's about asserting dominance and putting women down. To a certain type of man, I think maybe "she will tell other women that I am an asshole" can code as "women will learn to fear me."
Regarding HR departments, if one happened to be working for a small enlightened company and wanted to help construct the HR department in such a way that it legitimately was a department that protected the human rights of the workers instead of a way for management to keep uncomfortable incidents from affecting its bottom line: how might one go about it? Is that even possible?
I think we're going to start to see pushback soon about whether some of this was so bad, whether it really is a punishment-worthy offense, whether it was a different era three years ago and thus fine.
One of my worries is that we'll see pretty blatant differential enforcement, like it'll be fine to expose and punish abusers in Hollywood and the news media, but not in finance and politics, or at least not in the conservative politics . I mean, beyond what already happened what with the President being elected.
I blame all typos and weird spacing in that comment on HR.
I think that would still be less blatant differential enforcement than before.
I think there's a difference between isolated cases of differential enforcement and systematic use to punish enemies.
I think immigrants are great. I meant ex-pats.
78: Ok. I hate Californians. I won't tell you why, and if you ask for clarification I'l say the same thing again.
79: Not quite. If an expat is naturalized they cease to be an expat, but would be an immigrant; and in common usage an expat who is on course for naturalization might be called an immigrant.
73: one way to do it would be to give the HR department an incentive structure that encourages them to treat workers right. So don't link their bonus to a low number of employee complaints, because that gives them an incentive to cover up complaints.
Link it to, say, staff turnover - if your company is a bad place to work (for whatever reason, whether it's abusive managers or low pay or poor conditions or unshielded ionising radiation sources) then turnover will be high. And keeping turnover low will also help the bottom line, because recruitment is expensive. There has been a lot of work done recently on ways to measure corporate culture, in particular in the financial sector - that might be a good place to start.
There's nothing wrong with management wanting to prevent undesirable incidents because they hurt the bottom line - that's a good thing! You just have to make sure that they aren't instead trying to prevent reporting of undesirable incidents.
83: the idea used to be that an expat is there for a few years and then he'll go home (or somewhere else), while an immigrant is there permanently and wants to settle down and get citizenship if possible. But there is a lot of blurring around that line in reality. Lots of people who get bracketed as "immigrants" are over for a few years to earn a bit of money and then they'll probably go home.
Ok. I hate Californians.
Hey, most of them are OK. Megan is just an unusually antisocial person who thinks her own needs and wants are just naturally way more important than anyone else's. She's made this pretty clear over the years.
Because ex-pats have moved to a location where their own defaults (tall, white, English-speaking) give them extra privilege, and then coast on that bullshit (which is not work for them) to get extra advantages. Because they are not choosing to join and be responsible members of either their new society (that would be an immigrant) or their natal society. Because they do extraordinarily boring one-upmanship about who has traveled to the most extreme places and eaten the most iguanas back when it was pure, twenty years ago.
I actually have an ex-pat friend that I loved traveling with, because he took me to extreme places to eat iguanas, but he admits that he is rootless and can't really re-join a community and lead a civic life. "On vacation my whole life" was his term, although he does have a demanding and interesting job.
87. Ex-California US is a different country, applying 87 means no Californians unless they are definitely immigrants thank you.
Northern and southern California are different countries...
Judging the effect of travel by how responsibly people behave while they're away is narrow-minded.
89: "they do extraordinarily boring one-upmanship about who has traveled to the most extreme places".
I mean, they do also travel and brag about it at the slightest opportunity, but they aren't traveling. They're living somewhere, complaining about the maids.
"How many Nebraska counties have you been to this year?"
87: So you hate ex-pats who are tall, white, obnoxious in some quite narrow set of ways, and don't do work you consider demanding or interesting. You decided to share this aspect of your preferences with the whole blog, and being uninterested in precision, you instead gratuitously insulted an entire class of people you don't know.
I obey local laws and customs, pay my taxes, and would happily vote to pay more, but I will never be given the right to do that, however long I might stay and however much I may contribute and assimilate. Fuck you.
For the record, I don't actually hate Californians. I also don't, and never will, have a maid, even if I could afford one.
I mean, sometimes? I know some ex-pats in Japan who have settled down, started businesses, gotten married, some have kids. They're ex-pats because becoming a Japanese citizen is really friggin hard and not at all friendly to people who try it, especially compared to permanent residency. See Debito Arudou. Whatever privilege they get by being exotic whiteys is torn down by xenophobia, amazement that they figured out how to use chopsticks*, being seen as tools to practice English on, etc.
* It still amuses me that some people think chopsticks are harder than, say, learning a language.
ex-pats have moved to a location where their own defaults (tall, white, English-speaking) give them extra privilege, and then coast on that bullshit (which is not work for them) to get extra advantages.
The last expat worker I encountered was an A&E nurse from the Philippines. I suspect that she would be happy to echo Mossy.
89. What is travel according to you? What about the definition of regions-- should venture capitalists from San Francisco be allowed to visit other parts of CA if they're obnoxious while they are there?
Seriously, provincialism and a lack of knowledge of what things are like elsewhere, the world has enough of these. Some people are irredeemably selfish or blind or bigoted. Lots of people travel when they're young, say with the peace corps or the army.
Those all have built-in returns. Those are travel and I'm mostly not slighting travelers (except the annoying braggers). Ex-pat is different.
My family lived in Japan for a few years back in the 90s, and from that experience I'd say that a decent number of people who fit the obnoxious privileged ex-pat stereotype Megan refers to definitely exist. I'll happily take it as given that the stereotype doesn't fit anyone at unfogged, however.
87 is an extraordinarily ignorant comment.
My interest and fondness for Muslim/Arabic culture certainly played a large role in why I came here but the overriding reason was Di that I could have a job and maybe even a career after a long run of some of the hardest hard luck and, you know, not starve and end up homeless on the streets and it was a very near thing so fuck you very much.
On the internet, nobody knows you're an ex-pat.
I have absolutely no interest in defending or attacking ex-pats or Californians, but when you start to complain about comments because they are insulting and ill-informed, I feel you're stepping on my toes.
Obnoxious complainer is a dimension of personality that lots of people have. With some people, that's all that's visible; a real shame for them more than for those around them, who can leave.
Megan for instance is complaining obnoxiously right now. Ignoring what's good about her other than that would be an error, a way of willfully diminishing one's own lived experience.
99: I know those people exist, and co-exist in a community with more responsible English speakers. There are barriers put up that make it harder for people to cross over into responsibleness.
I realized I didn't really know what the situation was like in the Gulf, beyond a feeling that it's hard or impossible to become a citizen. The peninsula that stands alone apparently a few months ago decided to approve a way for ex-pats to get permanent residence. And that's a progressive step there.
Have they tried pretending to be a robot?
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Barry, if you're still around, could you please send me a mail? mypseudatyahoodotcom
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Because ex-pats have moved to a location where their own defaults (tall, white, English-speaking) give them extra privilege, and then coast on that bullshit (which is not work for them) to get extra advantages.
I have done very little traveling and never lived abroad, but boy howdy can I relate to this. In Africa (a few decades ago), I was a fucking rock star!
I don't know if it's reasonable to dislike expats and travelers in general, but I'm afraid I was a rather unattractive American in some ways. I remember a long conversation in which an African American volunteer with the Peace Corps explained how different our experiences were -- no rock star she! She was just an impertinent woman who put on airs by insisting on speaking English.
I found this funny. She did not.
We've moved on from Taibbi, but I remain interested in the question his experience (as he describes it) poses. I don't think I have any really gross offenses in my past -- certainly nothing Taibbi-level -- but how does one properly repent being an entitled little shit? Under what circumstance is repentance no longer even feasible?
107 And that's only going to be for the very cream of the tall, white, English-speaking most highly educated and paid ex-pats.
Not that it should matter, because maids have come here to work and make money to send home but I've never had and will never have a maid.
The travel is great. It seems Megan has a thing about travelling. But because of the current crisis it will be 6 months when I finally see my gf, and that's if they let me in, not a sure thing. I'm giving up the opportunity to see my brother with the stage 4 lymphoma though he's responding well so far to treatment and I hope to see him and his kids and my parents in the summer. As much as I like some aspects of being here the crisis has made it so much harder and if I could get a job in NY I'd move back in a minute. But I can't. So fuck you.
Also what Mossy said above..
112.1 A club of which I'm not a member.
111.last: If you didn't publish a memoir in which you boasted extensively about being an entitled little shit, then you've already got one up on Taibbi.
Things are very different in the Gulf. The Gulfies rule the roost. But they're also a minority in their own country. Egyptians are second in command. Then the westerners. Then the rest, subcontinent, Filipinos, etc, but there's a lot of difference among and between these communities. Indians with PhDs are hardly the same as Indian laborers.
Because they have more publications?
114: Right-o. I actually did publish some stuff from that trip. I'll have to dig it up and see how it holds up.
And now I'm remembering! As ignorant and provincial as I was, my editors wanted me to be more so.
I remember I wrote what may have been a rather condescending piece on how industrious the locals were. I metaphorically compared Kenyan entrepreneurs' accomplishments despite their lack of money to Kenyan distance runners' practice of running in the mountains, where oxygen was more scarce.
The metaphor, of course, had to do with being stronger because you have less to work with. My editor didn't get it at all. When I finally succeeded in walking him through it, he said, "Next you'll be comparing them to the Japanese!"
111.last Me personally, I would say being rude, half-blind, and quick to judge basically means being young, or at least immature. Most people improve in some ways as they age, some don't. Independently of that, travel can help people understand both the places they visit and separately their own homes. Or maybe not, but definitely developing a broader perspective is tougher for people who never move around much.
Being actually abusive as Taibbi describes is something different. I don't see the point of developing a scale for judging that, since proper judgement means knowing all the facts. On the basis of what he's written, I would not want to have anything to do with him personally or professionally.
Totally drifted now from Traister who, along with ydnew in 61 talks about backlash at the end of her essay.
I would say being rude, half-blind, and quick to judge basically means being young, or at least immature
And living overseas, especially when you are young, can really help to get you out of your own head and break you of that.
Or just moving to a completely different part of Nebraska.
Totally drifted now from Traister
I'm puzzled by that assertion, which had been made previously. Traister wasn't engaged in a digression when she linked to the Taibbi essay. Her piece was specifically about how we ought to think of culpability and the meaning of taking responsibility for one's actions.
"Suddenly, young Moby realized the others were all performing their whiteness...differently."
megan I must say I never would have thought you hated me personally. I mean, WTF?
People from Knox County drive like *this*. *waggles arms*
People from Boyd County drive like *this*. *waggles arms in an imperceptibly different way*
122. She also spends a fair amount of time focusing on women who get abused or sidelined. We have only Taibbi's own office-abuse denial and asinine writing. Part of deciding how to deal with the past is a clear assessment of who got hurt, which does not interest MT.
54
That interpretation of taibi's sentence seems correct now that you point it out.
Because they are not choosing to join and be responsible members of either their new society (that would be an immigrant) or their natal society.
It' true, at heart we are rootless cosmopolitans.
It' true, at heart we are rootless cosmopolitans.
Speaking of which, I saw this and thought of you. I don't know that it's meaningful for you personally, but I thought I'd share.
Incidentally, I read the article linked in the OP last night, it's quite good, and I do recommend it.
125: Those two aren't very different from each other.
Nope. You were right. I was thinking of Boyd and Keya Paha.
Honestly, they ought to fold those two counties in with surrounding counties.
123: More than everybody else was doing it wrong.
I'm glad that my arbitrarily chosen names for a bad riff off a bad joke format has inspired some serious thinking about the governance of northeast Nebraska.
I regret that I have only been to one Nebraska county this year, and it was in not northeast but southeast Nebraska...
Everybody goes to Lancaster County.
On the expat thing I think (a) Meghan describes a real problem, particularly in certain countries, of the overprivileged American/Westerner who is attracted to the lifestyle because of unearned privilege but (b) it is preposterous to describe all expats uniformly as in that category.
I also want to apologize to PF. For me, and maybe for other similarly situated men, I have an intense anger at having been sort of in the vicinity of people who were sort of doing stuff like this (no not Harvey) and not having done shit. The anger is directed mostly at myself. To be clear I'm not talking about witnessing a rape I could have prevented or anything similarly dramatic, just giving broad social tolerance to people who one sort of vaguely knew had undefined issues but never really asked about. I also now have rage triggered by perceived defenders of the bastards, in part because my actual job brings me quite close to people who are literally the defenders of some of them. It's clear that PF wasn't actually doing that and I was as usual being an asshole. Sorry.
Two American women who worked at the exile have said
, just giving broad social tolerance to people who one sort of vaguely knew had undefined issues but never really asked about.
Eh, specifically this issue is something that I'm glad to see people losing their shit over; if that sort of social tolerance shuts down, suddenly the world turns into a much better place. So, yeah, rage should be handled in a measured way, moderating in all things, but the fundamental reaction I approve of.
139: Are you ok, David? Did Matt's henchmen get you?
Two American women who worked at the exile have said that both Ames and Taibbi were actually really nice. I don't think I entirely believe them, and their sexism is indisputable, but that's what Taibbi alluding to in his statement.
For me, and maybe for other similarly situated men, I have an intense anger at having been sort of in the vicinity of people who were sort of doing stuff like this (no not Harvey) and not having done shit.
I didn't mean to provoke you, and for what it's worth, I was recently admonished by The Management here for a similar outburst, made for similar reasons. So I get it.
144 before seeing 140, which I think I need a little time to absorb.
Oy, if that looked like I was saying that Halford's losing his shit at you specifically was justified (and I could see how it could reasonably look that way), it was not intended that way at all. I just meant that being generally irate about the topic was a good thing.
141: I assure you I have escaped the clutches of more pundits' henchmen than I care to remember.
146: Oh good! For reasons too tedious to explain, I took that even worse than you think I did.
|| It sure looks like there's a coup taking place in Zimbabwe. |>
Mugabe is beyond awful but "need a coup" is a high bar, as a coup generally brings chaos possibly followed by a new stability just as bad. My gut says yes as it's a country that deserves better, but hell if I know.
They sure know how to deny that a coup is happening:
Thanks for your concerns, there is NO coup happening in Zimbabwe. Please continue with your lives and face up to your own problems.
There's probably somebody in the Trump White House trying to find Ian Smith's phone number.
Stephen Miller's probably too young to have it but they can just call Bannon and ask
Mugabe certainly deserves to hang from the rafters, but the aftermath is very unlikely to bring any net improvement.
That's what they say about impeaching Trump also and I'm not sure I buy it.
Sure as shit looks like a coup. Give or take a few shibboleths, this statement could have come from Mossheimat. Chilling.
I wrote a long essay in 9th grade defending Mugabe and dismissing his attackers as neocolonialists. It was the lead project for some class.
In 11th grade I wrote another long essay defending Andrew Johnson and dismissing his impeachers as unconstitutional radicals.
In further news, I may be an idiot.
We need to know who you defended as a college sophomore before we can be sure.
I'm so old that I can remember everybody celebrating the coup that got rid of Milton Obote. "Let's see how this Idi Amin guy turns out, " everybody said.
Well, sure. But Saddam, Gaddafi, and Mobutu turned out okay.
This appears to be a coup against Grace, rather than Robert. Mnangagwa is back in town. Mrs M is out of the country.
Precedents are very important.
I know you mean no ill, but I'm not laughing.
No, that was a "Ha!" as in, Good spot! Nothing funny about this.
Someone who knows Africa and I think very occasionally comments here said on Twitter that there was already a soft coup against Mugabe in the early 2000's, leaving him a figurehead/mascot with the military and police collectively holding true power. Making this a more overt version (or intra-military squabbling).
Back to the initial topic, I thought this from Liz Meriwether, also in The Cut, was good:
My problem with Louis C.K.'s apology was that it seemed to be built on the foundation that what happened with these women could be defined as sex. In my reading of his statement, he seemed to be apologizing for the problematic dynamics of having encounters with women less powerful than he was. I'm arguing that what happened wasn't actually sex at all; it was one person finding pleasure in another person's humiliation and fear. What happened was an attack.
My biggest problem with his apology is the one highlighted in the link in 29.last. He said he always asked before showing his penis, but he clearly didn't condition his showing of said penis on the response to the question. He wasn't asking and he's trying to imply he abused his power to obtain consent instead of admitting that he didn't seek consent.
Right, that definitely. But there's also a thing where, even if you took his apology as if it were literally true (which it patently wasn't), and gave him credit for thinking that he had obtained 'consent' for what happened (which he clearly didn't actually get in real life); what he did was still abusive and fucked up. Watching someone masturbate in front of you is, or can be, a sex act, and regardless of rules-lawyering about consent, you don't invite someone to have sex with you in the absence of any reason at all to think that they'd want to. And you don't take a startled and off-balance person's response to an unexpected proposition that they engage in a sex act they are very unlikely to desire or enjoy as license to go ahead with it. That might be just enough to get him off the hook for a rape charge, but it still leaves him being a scary abusive asshole.
We have only Taibbi's own office-abuse denial and asinine writing.
I don't want to get too into defending Taibbi, but a lot of people have said that he only denied abusing women at work like this, and I want to point out it's not true. In the link in 14, he uses the phrase "at work or elsewhere." He definitely condoned/supported rape culture in his writing. As for whether he personally abused/harassed/assaulted anyone, either he's innocent or he's telling bold-faced complete lies, but he's not making narrow lawyerly denials.
I don't have a strong opinion about what Taibbi actually did, but that's a failure of literalism there. The phrase 'at work or elsewhere' is in a sentence that's not about what he says he actually ever did, but about what he is confident his "former co-workers will report" about him. Taken with lawyerly literalism, that leaves him wide open to have done anything outside of their presence or knowledge.
Now, that kind of literally true but completely misleading denial is pretty pointless; no one's going to give him credit for the truth if wrongdoing comes out. But there is room in what he said.
129 Thanks, Bordwell's site is great. Unfortunately I don't have an edu email address though it is kind of an educational institution.
you don't invite someone to have sex with you in the absence of any reason at all to think that they'd want to
I guess, but only if "they married you" counts as a reason.
175: Did I say don't ask me about the last year or two of my marriage?
173.2: Yeah, that's right. Only lawyers think lawyerly responses are a smart choice in this kind of situation. Taibbi is pretty smart about language, and he's no lawyer.
I think Roy Moore made a dumb tactical choice when he said he "generally" didn't date teenagers. He should've just lied all the way. But he's a lawyer. Or so the yearbook signature said, anyway.
Taibbi's choice of language, meanwhile, is easily explained: The accusation was that he did these things publicly at work and elsewhere. So that's what he denied, and he offered the evidence that is actually available: the actual known witnesses, his co-workers.
Certainly guys who talk like Taibbi tend to act that way, too, in my experience. His defense is uncomfortably similar to Trump's: It was just locker room talk.
But in Taibbi's favor, and unlike Trump, where there is independent evidence, it seems to support him. Where there is no independent evidence, one might reasonably suppose that Taibbi's sole accuser -- himself -- was also unreliable.
(All of this is subject to correction based on my lack of knowledge. My sole source on this is this thread, Taibbi's explanations, and a couple of the links to his accusers. I don't remember having previously heard of eXile.)
easily explained
You've offered an easy explanation, it's true, and one that's remarkably charitable to Taibbi. Do you have reason to believe that a lawyer didn't vet his apology?
There is no realistic chance in my view that Taibbi did not consult with a lawyer before writing that statement. The issue has been public and known for years, his continued employment is at stake, he has both resources and access to counsel. Journalists at any commercial level routinely check with lawyers, sometimes including me, about what they can and can't say in public. People of any public reknown check with lawyers before providing statements on any controversial issue. It would simply be bizarre and highly unusual for Taibbibi not to have spoken with a lawyer before writing. And that sentence was, just as a matter of style based on long experience, clearly lawyer-written or influenced.
Louis CK also talked to lawyers before issuing his statement, of course.
Aren't you supposed to have a lawyer vet things like that? That's kind of the point of them.
179 and 180 have been my working assumptions, which is why I don't understand what pf was getting at in 177. It's also possible that I completely misunderstood him, because I'm on a plane and therefore pretty sedated.
173: fair enough, I guess I'm not as lawyerly as I think I am. This worries me because Cassandane is an actual lawyer and asks my advice about writing sometimes.
You've offered an easy explanation, it's true, and one that's remarkably charitable to Taibbi.
Taibbi is, or at least was, a grotesque misogynistic asshole -- and beyond that, a more general-purpose asshole, too. Megan has the right read on this. To say that Taibbi might not have sexually assaulted people in the middle of an office full of people doesn't strike me as super-charitable, but YMMV, and certainly your knowledge of the background in this case may exceed mine.
Do you have reason to believe that a lawyer didn't vet his apology?
This sounds like a good one for the lawyers to address, but I don't think Taibbi's second apology would have been approved by a lawyer even if he is completely telling the truth. If he's materially lying -- of if his lawyer is afraid he is materially lying -- it would surprise me to learn that the lawyer would sign off on that second apology.
But again: That's one for the lawyers.
I wouldn't fault anybody, guilty or not, for getting a lawyer when the are accused or likely to be accused of a crime. That's the way our society has decided to protect people.
I reserve the right to fault somebody for getting a lawyer to go on Fox News and say "most women who report sexual harassment are doing it for money."
I think it's perfectly possible to believe both that the apology was vetted by a lawyer, and to also believe that even if a hyper-literal reading of the words makes it a narrower denial than it looks like on a casual reading, that's accidental, and it was genuinely intended as a broad denial. Writing something completely unambiguous is hard, and people fail even with lawyers involved. 177 makes sense to me in in that context generally.
On this one specifically, I don't have a strong opinion. I've seen people reject denials as 'non-denial denials' where I thought they were being insanely overliteral, and it was a perfectly clear broad denial. This one, I'm not sure. I don't like bringing up 'no woman has ever accused me of doing anything wrong' without an accompanying assertion that he never did anything wrong (not limited by the concept of workplace harassment). But I'm not sure.
Louis CK also talked to lawyers before issuing his statement, of course.
A lengthy conference with Louis CK strategizing about exactly how he should discuss the fact that he masturbated in front of a lot of random women sounds pretty uncomfortable.
I guess that's why lawyers get paid the big bucks.
It's perfectly consistent with what I believe to be the likely truth, based on (admittedly hearsay) evidence: he didn't harass or assault the American women on the Exile staff or take them to places where he was, but he routinely exploited/assaulted/demeaned Russian women who weren't employees of the Exile, because he thought he could get awa with it and they didn't complain. There is essentially no chance that any of those women will come forward; most probably had no idea who he is.
In any event, who cares about litigating the precise level of the guy's sin. Based on admitted deeds he was and is an irredeemable asshole (Christianity alert -- absent true and meaningful confession and pennance and reconciliation, which hasn't happened and in any event is an issue for God, not us.)
"It" meaning Taibbi's statement.
186 - the tell is that Louis CK makes clear that he asked for and obtained consent first, which would be his defense tonany criminal or intentional tort lawsuit. It was designed to be as straightforwardly confessional as it could be without risking his family's assets.
Anyhow, I've had almost equally uncomfortable conversations with clients (none, thank God, involving sexual harrassment, rape, or assault). It is part of what you get paid for.
188.lat: Am curious, have you had any clients with Trumpian level dishonesty which I am sure includes lying to his lawyers when he sees fit. (Any other lawyers can chime in.) I'm sure there many who are prone to shade* things to their advantage, but what about outright falsehoods?
*and I presume a necessary skill for lawyers is guiding such folks to more accurate accounting through things like mock adversarial questioning.
I don't like bringing up 'no woman has ever accused me of doing anything wrong' without an accompanying assertion that he never did anything wrong (not limited by the concept of workplace harassment).
I think you're correct not to, and 187 gets at exactly why. He's denying as broadly as he can without saying anything (very) likely to be flatly contradicted. Even a slightly more charitable guess at the truth than 187.1--that he knew he'd played around with the line, but didn't really think he'd crossed it--takes refuge in the absence of actual complaints as evidence of absence of bad behavior.
Anyway, Taibbi was already largely written off in my book because of his response to TrumPutin, but this is sufficient for me to feel comfortable never quoting, sharing, or relying on the guy. If he continues to be employed and surfaces interesting news at some point, fine, but whatever value his specific voice had in the aftermath of the crash is gone to me.
I can't tell you anything about my client conversations but I've never had anyone whom I knew (or even felt) was lying to me, and would have ditched them if I had. The Trump "you need two lawyers in the room with Trump because this guy lies all the time" thing was way, way outside my experience and was shocking. Criminal defense lawyers, or many of them, probably have a different perspective.
I'm very curious about how honest people are with their lawyers, in general. It seems like a thing that there is no way to find out, ever, other than just using anecdata.
I'm pretty sure if a lawyer knows the client is going to lie under oath, the lawyer is supposed to do something. I'm not sure what.
According to the Barbri book I found laying around, they're supposed to "Call Batman."
If you didn't read the full Roy Moore cease-and-desist letter, it's a trip. Full of number disagreement, incomplete sentences, and generally comes off like its composition and typing were all one.
It is really easy to tell the difference between a shitty lawyer and a competent one.
196: The competent ones have Batman's phone number on speed dial.
I testified in a hearing a couple of weeks ago. The lawyer for the other side was clearly shitty. I was less certain about the lawyer on my side. What are the tells?
193 - I believe the rule, at least in California, is that (after trying to persuade the client to recant) you are supposed to try and withdraw from the representation without telling the court why, and, if the court doesn't let you withdraw then you have to not rely on the testimony in any argument, pleading, etc. But you don't report the perjury to the judge. This has never come up for me and I'm going on a vague memory so could be wrong. Probably there's a more stringent rule for criminal prosecutors.
I didn't get a look at her phone.
But if the client is lying TO the lawyer, the lawyer wouldn't know they were lying under oath, necessarily.
Right, but if the client doesn't know what lie gets them off, they might ask for help in coming up with a good lie.
True. But at least in civil cases, why lie to the lawyer? As I tell people, our conversations are protected and the best way I can help is to know the absolute worst and plan around it. Most people get that. Criminal defense lawyers have obligations not to help further a crime and have all sorts of strategies for not directly asking/learning whether the person did it, which I have never dealt with because IANA Criminal L.
202: From TV shows I know the way you do that is by talking in hypotheticals.
203: Sometimes the truth is very embarrassing.
192: I told the lawyer representing me that the experience reminded me of my Catholic upbringing: Every time I talked to him was like going to confession.
I would assume the only reason you would have for lying to your lawyer is because you intended to lie under oath. Or you didn't want to pay them.
205 was actually written by Donald Trump. That's not ok, Donald!
206: I had a dentist that made me feel the same.
I did not floss and I chewed tobacco and I did not see a dentist for ten years.
But at least in civil cases, why lie to the lawyer?
Bc they are embarrassed.
Bc they want the lawyer to like them.
Bc they are afraid the truth will hurt their case.
Bc they are liars.
See also:
Bc they just say whatever comes into their brain.
Bc they remember it a way that is most favorable to them.
Bc they don't really remember.
Bc they haven't taken the time to really put the details together.
I would bet that a divorce lawyer gets lied to more than a criminal defense lawyer.
For example: 90% of divorce clients tell me (and every other lawyer) that they are not seeking a divorce because of someone else. They just suddenly decided, totally out of the blue, that they wanted out of their marriage.
"Hmmmmmm are you sure you aren't boning someone?"
No, no, no. Don't be silly.
Doesn't law school teach you a more formal way to say "boning"?
See also: "I took care of the kids ALL the time." Or "He/she never took care of the kids." and so on.
Most people don't really outright lie, but instead exaggerate or de-emphacize important parts.
Shockingly, the truth is the best strategy when presented the correct way. Bc the truth is the story line that makes sense. Lies don't fit well together. They present a disjointed story.
So I spend a lot of time walking my clients through their situations like Arthur Murray Dance Steps. Like the rest of us, clients tends to skip portions of stories and jump around.
I didn't say she's insane! I said she's fucking Goofy.
205: I consulted a lawyer in my wrongful termination action (actually an arbitration). I had to dredge up every potential fuckup they might use against me.
Which wasn't really embarrassing because I was very good at my job. But the day I got fired, I went to a bar with some colleagues and got near-blackout drunk. As one does.
Next day, I got a call from a woman I didn't know who had called me at work, but then found out my home number to call me there. She was concerned about my well-being. I was confused.
She told me she had heard my answering machine message and was worried about me. Oh, shit: I remembered. At the bar, in a very advanced state of drunkenness, I had called my work number and remotely changed my answering machine message to let callers know that I wouldn't be taking any calls because the fuckers had fired me. I think I also encouraged callers to ask the fuckers why they fired me.
I assured the nice lady that I would be fine, and later sheepishly told my lawyer this tale. He told me it wouldn't be a problem. (They had already fired me, so it didn't qualify as evidence.)
And I did win the case, with back pay.
Back pay and they had to leave the message for that number?
I immediately remotely changed my answering machine message back to what it had been.
That was very prudent, but boring.
tells Eclectic web magazine contributions, a chain of past clients radiating virtue, possibly an office in the storage area of a nail salon.
Hm. I don't see how I'm going to find that out unless I have to testify again (or am called back after the decision is appealed). But it's good to know what to look for.
I also told the story in a recent thread about getting busted for photographing a guy who was being abused by cops. My lawyer told me that there's an advantage in defending guilty clients who are honest with him: You have a pretty good idea what the cops are going to say.
With innocent clients, who knows? This apparently is a particular problem in New Orleans where, I was surprised to find out, I couldn't get access to a written police report about my incident.
Yes, 212 and 214 are totally right and especially salient in family law. And to be clear I am thinking of "intentional falsehoods" -- all clients, like everyone else, have selective and self-seving memory and a limited recall of the facts.
I recall that when I got divorced with a lawyer it took a while to convince the lawyer (whom I liked and like a lot) that, no, I really was trying to be honest and tell her everything.
218:
Carl Kasell would have been a great name to use.
197: Good lawyers know the law. Great lawyers know the Batman.
I'm old enough to remember when the commentariat tried to parse Megan's definition of "fun." It went over about as well as her definition of "ex-pat" has.
For what it's worth, there is probably commentary from Ames and/or Taibbi way back in the archives of Johnson's Russia List that would shed light on how fictional Taibbi's non-fiction was. I never made it up to Moscow in the 1990s, but its reputation was every bit as louche as Taibbi's portrayal. I worked on English-language newspapers in Budapest (1993-94) and Warsaw (1995); some of the times there were wild, but my impression is that Moscow was in another league entirely.
228.1: Throwing burning couches off of roofs. Perfectly clear, understandable, and nearly universal.
I'd do it right now, but there isn't enough room between the part of the house with a roof I can get to and the shrubbery.
216.1: For real, though, I took care of the kids allllll the time. I didn't have to testify about that to the clerk at the child support office today but she was nice anyway and either guessed or is supportive like that to everyone who comes in. Actually maybe it was that I know our children's middle names when Lee hadn't that made the difference.
I only know my son's birthday because I'm the one that buys airline tickets.
Before that, I always got it confused with my sister's or my aunt's. They are all right in a row. I also confuse my mom's and brother's birthdays because they are consecutive days.
Since we're far enough in the thread for a derail, I'll just say that I am delighted that eight months ago I apparently thought far enough ahead to schedule a timed e-mail to remind myself of a birthday present idea to purchase for my nephew.
I am a genius. And scheduled e-mail is a godsend.
I don't even have a nephew. Lazy siblings.
Three siblings. You'd think I'd have good odds of at least one nephew.
I'm just bored because I'm too sick to move much and not sick enough to sleep.
Podcasts are great for that -- set yourself up with someone burbling on calmly about Thomas Paine or accessible design for hours, and you should either be entertained or bored to sleep.
I'm not sure l even know how to play a podcast.
I think I'll probably have some chicken soup followed by NyQuil.
Do you need iTunes to hear a podcast?
No, but make sure you rate the podcast on iTunes, it really helps!
I don't know, but podcasters say that a lot.
I'm going to need more than that to figure out how to rate a podcast using an iPod with one of those little wheels and not screen.
I think you need to buy an iphone first.
Those are $1,000 and break if you drop them.
I'm just bored because I'm too sick to move much and not sick enough to sleep.
Same. Let's form a club!
if the club only meets in Unfogged comment threads, every meeting will be recorded for posterity anyway
I don't know, but my impression is that problems with Apple products can always be solved by buying more Apple products.
I have so much to do, but it's not getting done tonight. I had a bagel, so that might make it easier to sleep. I didn't put any salmon on it because my stomach feels weird.
I move we find a tester for my ersatz NyQuil (vanilla extract, red wine, Tylenol, agave syrup, and raisins).
are there any pets you dislike hanging around?
I'm up to four nieces and two nephews. I may still get another someday, but even if not I still have a ton of fun taking them on their various birthday field trips.
Clearly I forgot to post that comment earlier. Sorry you're sick, MH and EM. That's the worst.
That is a lot of sobrinos to keep track of. I studiously do not do birthdays, just send occasional gifts at random intervals to pseudonephews.
And occasionally comment to your pseudofriends, typing with your little pseudopods.
I could use some pseudoephedrine, myself.
252: I'm not taking minutes.
The ubiquitous and quotidian reach of male privilege.
3 nieces, 3 nephews, and that's very likely to be it. One grand of each so far.
Just figured out the other day that my grandmother's second cousin married a guy and had 17 children, all of whom survived to adulthood, and 13 of whom are still living. If you go to Quebec and throw a rock, the odds are not insignificant that you'll hit one of my cousins.
I hope all of you sick sick people feel better soon.
Just the thought of imaginary people throwing rocks at my relatives apparently made the computer forget who I am.
I'm bummed I missed the expat thread. The difference is class. If you are high status, you are called an expat. If you are a low status, you are an immigrant, or perhaps a "migrant worker."
If you go to Quebec and throw a rock, the odds are not insignificant that you'll hit one of my cousins.
Hey, I also have some Quebec cousins. Not that I'm throwing rocks at anyone...
My generation hasn't had many children, but the one before was reasonably enthusiastic -- one uncle had four, by two wives, all daughters. The eldest of these cut herself off from much of the family in protest at her parents' divorce but has recently started following me on twitter. I haven't dared make personal contact. I think she understands our relationship but you never know. In any case, it turns out (from yet another cousin) that she was a printer on a trotskyite paper in the Sixties before becoming a pretty successful academic. Since her parents were a decorated war hero and an actress of sufficient fame to have their wedding immortalised on Pathe News, this represented quite a career change.
I do wonder if I will ever speak to her. By the time I moved to England, aged seven or eight, the breach was a fait accompli. Her sister came to mother's hundredth birthday, though, and to my fiftieth.
M
The Duke of Beauclerk and I were yesterday in attendance on her and found her in good spirits. Chymists and cunning artificers have distilled for her potions beyond the skills of Dr Bendo, which have greatly soothed her pains.
I was talking to a neighbor in our laundry room the other day, and she told me that she had had a segment of intestine the length of an iPhone 7 removed. And I cracked up and told her that surgically removed body parts had to be described in terms of fruit, there's a rule.
And hooray for what sounds to be the returning good health of London's most notorious actress!
And, in other news, my long-lost trotskyite cousin turns out to be aware of our relationship yet still willing to be an at least imaginary friend.
And I cracked up and told her that surgically removed body parts had to be described in terms of fruit, there's a rule.
Well it was an Apple device.
WE'RE TROTSKYISTS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
We had a long-lost cousin. Apparently my grandfather's brother had kid with a woman he wasn't married to and everybody decided not to mention this from like 1940 through 1990.
270 Glad to hear it Charles. Most entertainingly written comment too. I tried to come up with a Dr. Bendo/Dr. Benway joke but failed miserably.
It transpires that -- while she sold mere oranges externally -- she sheltered in her bowels a fibroid the size of a grapefruit. So likewise was her womb enlarged.
Holy moly. Glad she's recuperating well.
The formatting gods punished me for trying to use an emoticon in 282.
Anyway, cheers to 217, my all-time favorite joke.
I am betimes returned to mine own house, wherein His Royal Highness, notwithstanding his great distrust of that beverage, has kindly procured me a most delicious cup of coffee. For this service I must henceforth remain dependent on him until the compound of glue and string which now holds together my nether parts is replaced by tissue strong enough to withstand the use of that most pleasing and useful device, the aeropress.
I am sensible of the gracious outpourings of kind sentiment expressed by my phantastical friends, and profess my sincerest gratitude.
The difference is class. If you are high status, you are called an expat. If you are a low status, you are an immigrant, or perhaps a "migrant worker."
Nope. Immigrants intend to naturalize, become part of their new community. "Migrant workers" generally have intentions of going home, and often supporting families back home.
Ex-pats live abroad but are giving up no privileges of home or in their new place, shirking responsibility in both countries.
I am honestly surprised that you guys think I'm confused about the categories. I know full well what refugees, travelers, migrant workers, immigrants, people doing a service term abroad and ex-pats are. I picked the category that I meant and have no qualms about the others.
And you can go fuck right off again.
For real, do you have a name for the category of people who are temporarily working abroad in high-status jobs, but aren't shitheads? Are they some kind of 'not expat' to you?
Like, I get calling high-status workers working abroad expats, as distinct from the other groups you identify. And I get your description of a common type of expat as awful; I met some of those people when I was in Samoa, and they are awful. But hating expats generally because they're irresponsible and exploiting the locals seems like hating people from Los Angeles because they're all vapid blondes with capped teeth working in the entertainment industry.
For real, do you have a name for the category of people who are temporarily working abroad in high-status jobs, but aren't shitheads?
Maybe even a mumbled "present company excluded".
I've heard some Talmudic discussion online of ex-pats versus other groups, but essentially 100% of Americans living abroad call themselves "ex-pats". High-level bank executives, people working illegally as waiters, people who are spending junior-year abroad, people who have lived in the same country for 25 years, everybody. But what do we know?
I never called myself an ex-post when I was doing a semester abroad.
How much of that might be due to the fact that so long as they have US citizenship, they're obligated to continue paying (or at least filing) US taxes? I gather we're one of the few nations that does that.
I think they should have to pay extra for leaving us behind with all the Trump voters.
There were two distinct groups of expats in all the crazy places my parents lived- the "expat community" which was the shitty people and the Ambassador and all the other people who never interacted with the locals if they could help it. And then there was a looser group of people who were expats but lived in a local-equivalent house with the locally-expected number of maids (in Rwanda, my dad's housekeeper had a housekeeper/maid of his own. My dad's house was ridiculous though). And had local friendships and were invited to local events and so on.
Sometimes the group overlapped, but the big picture was two very distinct social groups. I could see calling the first one "expats" and not meaning to include people in the second. Like when I say "hearing people" I mean "hearing people who don't know ASL"
But what do we know?
With an open mind like this, you can probably learn. As long as you're not a shirker. Working in an irresponsible field is shirking. There's a website in development where you'll be able to check your status.
295: Are you feeling better? I woke up feeling pretty normal, mostly.
No. And I just ruined my 11-month no-vomiting streak. Which was physically unpleasant and also very demoralizing.
Ruining it was, I mean. The streak itself was quite nice.
Sorry to hear that. I'm at four days since a premature lost food incident.
It was, at least, the least painful vomit of my adulthood.
The program for the Dem central committee meeting this week was on the affordable housing problem in our city. Prices are a lot higher than you'd expect given wages. Well, rents are what you'd expect, but prices to buy are quite elevated. People (like me)* who get all or most of their money from someplace else are (a) typically not renting and (b) able to spend quite a bit for for housing than folks living on the local economy.
The Econ 101 solution is to build a whole bunch more houses, but over in Bozeman they're building a bunch of new houses, and instead of prices going down, they're drawing in ever more "California expats"** and driving prices up.
* I'm at the bottom edge of this. We have a substantial percentage of folks living on investment income, and anecdotally, quite a number of people who live here and commute to Seattle/NYC/Boston/DC. A lot of people who could live anywhere choose to live in our little town.
** Some of whom are from Denver, Chicago, NYC, wherever.
291: None of the long-term American residents of Japan whom I know would call themselves expats, just because of the negative connotations. A few have taken Japanese nationality - it's not as hard as it used to be - and far more would do so if it were possible to retain dual nationality. But there's also a stigma attached to the idea of being an immigrant, which I wonder if white Westerners in a non-white country (myself included) may find it hard to take on. It took at least 15 years before I acknowledged myself to be an immigrant in Japan, in the sense that my entire life was there and I intended to stay there until I died, even if I wasn't ever going to be Japanese.
You really think so?
302- I've been browsing the local real estate market lately (at the lower end) and it's pretty intense. Everything that's not held together with scotch tape sells within a week, basically.
There was one listed at something like $150k, but with caveats of: no pictures available; no guarantee on the inside of the house; house is occupied; no visits to the property; buyer is responsible for gaining posession of the property after the sale.
That's some fixer-upper!
The Econ 101 solution is to build a whole bunch more houses, but over in Bozeman they're building a bunch of new houses, and instead of prices going down, they're drawing in ever more "California expats"** and driving prices up.
Because developers only want to build the most expensive thing possible. This is infuriating, and the city ought to be doing something to drive up the modest housing stock that fancy Californians wouldn't want.
Does Montana law allow for non-flat property taxes? Pennsylvania's Constitution forbids them, but they could be effective against excessive luxury homes.
305: That sounds like a scam to sell someone else's house, with hilarious results.
Billings and Butte are probably still pretty cheap.
But I am pro anything that keeps Montana real estate prices down for fantasizing theoretical California expats. Fantasy mountain hone Zillow needs lower prices.
Butte is amazing. You can buy gorgeous old houses in perfect condition for like $20,000.
But then you have to live in Butte.
310.last What's wrong with Butte?
286: "I know full well what have a very limited and blinkered notion of what refugees, travelers, migrant workers, immigrants, people doing a service term abroad and ex-pats are. I picked the category that I meant and have no qualms about the others offending people by aggressively displaying my ignorance."
Fixed that for you.
Let's talk about my middle child's homeroom class in a public, German-language school. About a third of the kids have parents with non-German backgrounds. Last year, both class reps in the PTA were native speakers of Spanish, one from Spain, one from Mexico. This year, the Spanish lady has stayed on, and I am the other rep. P's parents are from Nepal; at least one of them works for Siemens. The husband of the lady from Mexico grew up in Mexico City after his parents left Ukraine; the child in the class speaks Spanish, Ukrainian, and German. J's mom is from China, and her dad is German; they are very well off, though I do not know what kind of work they do. Il's are Romanian; they are a classic diplomatic family, though their child is in a local public school. S's mom is French, and her dad is German; he is a local banker, and they have a very nice house. This year, we have a new part-Canadian family in the class. I do not know the stories of all of the international families in the class. I suspect that almost none of the non-German parents will be taking on German citizenship, though that has become easier and less exclusive in the nearly-20 years that I have been here.
Let's talk about Phil, who came to West Berlin during the Vietnam War. I never asked whether he was specifically dodging the draft, though I gathered his move was in reaction to what the US had become during that war. He built a business as a translator, helping to extend a local network of German-to-English translators, and leaning forward in integrating machine translation into high-quality human translation. He died last year.
Let's talk about my German professor at a small liberal arts college. RZ retired in 2016 after a full academic career, teaching, researching, bridging two cultures. He still holds (only) his German citizenship.
I could go on, but I think that just scratching the surface of actual lived experience shows that 287 has the right of it.
311- I actually really like Butte, and would move there under the right circumstances. It is one of the most interesting places in the US, historically.
Now, though, there are no jobs, the weather is insane*, and it is the home of a huge superfund site that is a lake full of acid, predicted to start poisoning groundwater in 2020 if somebody doesn't do something. It has a very small-town-abandoned-Detroit aspect to it.
Also underground tours of the speakeasies and brothels from Prohibition. Literally underground.
*Extreme cold, and fast, erratic changes
Let's talk about Phil
Phil seems like a nice guy, but I really can't add anything to the conversation. I can talk about a different Phil I knew. He was in graduate school with me but dropped out to become a lawyer. About 1/3 of my graduate school class are now lawyers. About twice as many as work in universities, even if you count me.
Extreme cold, and fast, erratic changes
That sounds like Nebraska. Except we won't even start poisoning the groundwater until Keystone gets finished.
Okay, if we're going to start saying nice things about Phils, then this pro-ex-pat thing has gone too far. The Phils were a well-deserved 66-96 last year. There's a reason why Phil is the Prince of Insufficient Light.
I don't know for sure, but I think the cold is colder. Butte is basically on the Continental Divide so there's a substantial windchill factor, too.
Wikipedia seems to say Butte is colder (average highs for January/February are single digits) but Nebraska is hotter (Butte rarely gets out of the 80s).
My uncle, who lives in Butte, is very proud of the fact that his mother (my grandmother) was born in Loma, MT, which has the record 24-hour temperature change in all the land. (it's the world record, really). A change of 103 degrees in 24 hours, from -54 to +49, sometime in the 60s or 70s.
311 I wouldn't choose it, but the occasional day or two I've had to spend there for work over the years has been fine. It's a pretty small town, with an outsized legacy, and a very strong identity. And a nice old courthouse.
I'm driving over to Bozeman this morning: we got a couple inches of snow last night here, and I have no idea what the roads will be like through Butte.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnInoYi79A
But hating expats generally because they're irresponsible and exploiting the locals seems like hating people from Los Angeles because they're all vapid blondes with capped teeth working in the entertainment industry.
The only sensible approach?
Also, capped teeth?
318: I'm very sure Butte is colder and more extreme. I was just thinking of the pattern having similarities.
321.2: Don't pretend everybody in Pittsburgh is too innocent of artifice for you to know what that is.
319- I love visiting. And I can imagine living there happily, in the right circumstances. But those circumstances don't seem very likely. A high school friend was a librarian there for years and loved it.
So do I, but I expect I'll get over it in a couple of months.
Signing on to all of 313, just in case there was any doubt.
323: I'm actually not sure I know exactly what they are, but mostly I was surprised that that was LB's chosen signifier. Fake boobs, tans, and hair seem like more obvious targets.
Never look a gifted actress in the mouth.
It's not whether EM or I want to go there, it's whether we can get the Californians* to go there instead of here or Bozeman. Butte has the reputation as an insular, blue collar place, a company town that the company abandoned 3 decades ago. It's high and fairly dry: the early development of both Bozeman and Missoula owes much to the fact that agriculture is much easier there, so people came here to produce food for the mines in Butte.
* Many of whom come from Denver or the East Coast.
Did I mean capped? Thinking about it, I think I meant veneers, maybe? Something to make them artificially white. My own dentistry is charmingly European, so my vocabulary on this stuff is weak.
I still want to live in Bozeman. Spent four days there about thirty years ago and it remains vivid in my memory as a nice town with a great fly shop. And airport.
Possibly this has come up before, but Dashiel Hammett's fantastic Red Harvest is set in a fictionalized Butte.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual butts (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
I've always thought the danger of going blood simple was a strike against Butte.