I also suspect that many people aren't going to feel particularly effusive about me finally clearing the bare minimum threshold here.
Baby steps in the right direction are better than nothing though. Smiley face, heart emoji.
As a very long-time lurker and extremely infrequent commenter, I barely have any right to say that I approve of this policy. Nevertheless: I approve of this policy.
Sounds good. Looking back I think booting Shearer was a clear improvement
I haven't been commenting much for ages, but I have been increasingly appalled by what I find here when I do read the threads. This is a good policy.
Thanks, hosts. The most generous read is that you felt like there was an opportunity for something good or productive to come from these discussions and waited until it was unambiguously clear there was no upside of engagement. We've all been there, I think.
I'm still going to try to appall people with puns.
Thanks Heebie. This clears the head a bit. :)
Thanks (from a long-time lurker / occasional troll).
Thanks, Moby.
And echoing the approval, heebie-geebie.
I was planning to really disappear again after my back and forth with moby in the other thread, because that's the funny thing to do, but what 13 said.
The paradox of tolerance is ever-increasingly present in my life (and, maybe, in general)
My previous comment at 4 wasn't very enthusiastic but that doesn't mean I am not very, very glad for this post.
(How many negatives are in that sentence? Its intended meaning = I AM glad.)
I feel like no one is even offering me an edible arrangement fruit basket for my largesse.
By "I have been increasingly appalled by what I find here when I do read the threads," essear means "I find that there is no edible arrangement fruit basket for heebie!" Everyone has your back.
Unrelated to this excellent change in policy, I should probably try to quit commenting so much.
15: Don't do it. We're making such good progress!
23.last: I thought this was a lure to keep you commenting. Foiled!
21: If only you had called it a "mandate".
This is a good policy but I thought edibles were illegal in Texas.
Ah well. If Lourdes' belief that she is a woman is to be honoured and celebrated here and mine that I am arguing in good faith is not, it's time to go, It's been fun. Really.
I don't want to tar anyone with the seal of my approval, but lots of you have been among the most enjoyable and enlightening imaginary friends anyone could hope for. This includes a lot of the people I've argued with.
Like every other argument on the internet, this one has proved that I am more right than even I could have imagined. There's obviously a section of the American Left so completely unable to deal with anything outside its narrow boundaries of class and culture that it will never be able to understand how the Right won in 2022, 2024 and onwards. "Defenceless under the night, your world in stupor lies".
If any of you need visas*, food parcels, etc, after 2024, do write. I'm not that hard to find.
*OK, not visas maybe
"I know I'm right because I'm deeply in touch with the forces that will put Trump back in the White House."
Honestly we should have kept talking about the potential strengths and weaknesses of the Russian battalion tactical group concept.
More seriously, whining about something as trivial as "they" pronouns is just ridiculously basic and lame. really that's it? that's the limit?
I remember as a kid reading in an old copy of Fowler that you technically shouldn't say "if anyone wants a copy, they can have one" and thinking how ridiculous this was as everyone just says that anyway, and that would have been 1987 or thereabouts.
Honestly we should have kept talking about the potential strengths and weaknesses of the Russian battalion tactical group concept
Also a potential question of life and death for some commenters on the blog (and not unrelated to Trump, of course).
More seriously, whining about something as trivial as "they" pronouns is just ridiculously basic and lame. really that's it? that's the limit?
Just to add that NW* in 38.1 had no problem using lourdes' correct pronouns. So what gives? Really this seems like such a small thing to me to make this unique place a congenial and safe one for all our imaginary friends.
*Who will be, speaking for myself, much missed here, but this moratorium is long past due and necessary.
38: no one thinks you aren't arguing in good faith. We think the thing you in-good-faith believe is horrible and harmful, and we want you to stop arguing about it with absolutely no consideration of your good faith. Argue about other stuff. Leave this topic alone.
Or, if withholding your opinion on this topic is unbearable to contemplate, then, as you say, it's been fun.
Hey, thanks Heebie! Moderation here is weird, what with all the defunct and semi-defunct FPPs and Heebie as the only one putting any significant energy into the site. And we've also got a thing going on where all the FPP are temperamentally strongly disinclined to do any active moderation beyond exhortation in the comments, which makes things like this take a very long time even when they do ultimately seem to be necessary. I could have done this ages ago, and so could anyone else who has or had keys to the blog, and I'm grateful that Heebie finally made the move.
Every online community must have its standards, its code of conduct. That's only reasonable, and it's the only way an online community can survive.
I know that I have violated the community norms with my gender-critical belief that trans rights are basically a men's rights movement by stealth (totally misogynistic, and also quite homophobic). And since I absolutely refuse to grovel and abase myself with a meaningless apology, you can rest assured that I won't be inflicting my wrongthink on this group ever again.
38's unseemly flounce nicely manages to be racist into the bargain, which is a fine and subtle touch.
Everyone's getting their Parthian shots in, I guess. Enjoy Mumsnet!
We don't want to adopt the boundaries of the current US political discussion as a guide for what is okay here.
Love to watch Tucker Carlson every night taking a brave stand against misogyny, male supremacy, and homophobia. So brave.
48: I'm glad you got the expression correct. Reassuring that the world hasn't changed completely.
I have to admit that 47 is too subtle for me.
I mean, both "Parthian shot" and "parting shot" are correct. It's a shot you loose as you leave, just as a parting word is a word you say as you leave. As you part from someone, in fact. Parting is such sweet sorrow, wrote Shakespeare, three centuries before the first recorded use of the phrase "Parthian shot", though Shakespeare himself used the general concept.
(Boldness be my friend!
Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!
Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight...)
(sidenote: all other mentions of Parthians in Shakespeare are mentions of actual literal Parthians, including the one in which one character says to another "Look! The Parthians are all running away! Get after them!" which doesn't sound like terrific advice.)
I'm sure that the reason "parting shot" rather than, say, "leaving shot" or "flying shot" became a phrase is because of the similarity in sound between "Parthian" and "parting", but that doesn't make either of them wrong.
46 really summarized how far off the conspiratorial deep end JAQing leads you.
52-53: nosflow may be misidentifying the quote as coming from Pope's "Lo, the poor Indian" rather than Auden's "September 1 1939".
There's a meanness and cruelty in 46.2, as in the comment that kicked this all off, that I'll be glad to never see here again.
It's really depressing how much of ordinary daily life gets tied in directly to electoral politics nowadays. Constantly judging all personal private decisions through the lens of whether it'll effect elections is just no way to live.
It's obvious that people who use "parting shot" have not played Age of Empires often enough.
52/3: Well, what "culture" do you think nworb thinks is inside the "narrow boundaries of class and culture" within which the American left is lost? IME this is code for "this is a rich white person concern", which sometimes means "will no one think of the working class?" (= not-rich white people), and sometimes means "these ideas are unacceptable to so-called ethnic minorities, who are mired in Traditional Thought", and neither the starting point nor either branch reflects particularly well on the person making the claim. Of course it's possible, barely, that nworb means something like "the set of people who are concerned about trans rights, though actually quite diverse socioeconomically, is unable to effectively get others on board with their concerns", but if so he chose a remarkably weird way to put it.
"Parthian shot" is racist because it promulgates concept of Parthians as deceitful and constantly pretending to flee in a sneaky underhand way. (Similar to "Indian giver", "French leave", "Dutch courage" etc.) I would imagine that in actual battle most Parthian shots, as in most shots loosed by Parthians, came from Parthians who were either advancing or standing still.
I confess I said "Parthian" rather than "parting" not out of a belief that it is more correct, but rather out of a belief that it's more recherché.
61 But firing in advance and backwards while "retreating," especially while fighting infantry as at Carrhae is a common horse archery tactic though.
I would imagine that in actual battle most Parthian shots, as in most shots loosed by Parthians, came from Parthians who were either advancing or standing still.
Right but most shots loosed by anyone loosing shots are thus loosed. The question is, what kind of shot is differentially characteristic of Parthian archers?
I thought the point was that it's a flight of arrows loosed at maximum advantage when turning in a tactical retreat so you can break a static enemy formation by enraging them to pursue.
60: That seems like an awfully tenuous chain of reasoning to arrive at what NW really meant, but given that he's said he's not commenting here any more, you could be right and you certainly can't be authoritatively contradicted. (Or to be less elliptically snippy, it seems lousy to me to take the opportunity of someone having left to accuse them of bad behavior unrelated to what they left over on thin evidence. Can't we just leave it as NW's positions on trans issues aren't acceptable here without straining for other reasons to condemn him?)
66: well, sure, I mean, it's not super important and what he's explicitly said is bad enough. But I do think that accusations that the left is mired in some cultural dead-end do often come down to something along those lines, even if, in fact, that isn't the case in this particular instance.
So Jane TERF'd herself out?
Sssemi-relatedly: https://twitter.com/midnight_pals/status/1487879887985975296
(Click around for bonus Chuck Tingle content.)
It's also so you keep out of range of tight enemy infantry formations like a phalanx or testudo, because horses don't like to jump onto pointy sticks. Then you hammer them with your cataphracts.
64: well, not shots loosed backwards while moving away, as Barry points out - horse archers all over the world used the same tactic. It's a very useful tactic if you've got the skill to make it work. Call it a "horse archer shot" and avoid the stigma of Parthophobia.
There's an Unmitigated Pedantry post on this.
It's not a slam on Parthians, but crediting them for something they didn't invent. Like how French Fries were really invented by Belgians.
70: good point, and made me look up what happened at Carrhae which I know now was a classic bit of combined arms tactics. Very similar to the horse/foot/gun interplay of gunpowder-age fighting, where the art was to pick when to switch from square (cavalry-proof, not great against infantry, big target for guns, virtually immobile) to line (great against infantry, weak against cavalry, virtually immune to guns, not easily moved) to column (vulnerable to both horse and guns but can advance).
I find "recherché" to be recherché. If you insist on such language, you'll never be elected governor of Virginia.
Moray at Bannockburn actually charged cavalry at rest with an infantry schiltrom and routed them which must have come as a hell of a shock to them.
If you insist on such language, you'll never be elected governor of Virginia.
Why do you think I do it?
Yeah, I feel like transphobic appeals-to-voters can sometimes go in the "you're alienating people of color" direction but they can just as often pit the putatively white working class against the putatively white intelligentsia.
77 which IIRC took one hell of a lot of training and practice to pull off.
79: but I acknowledge the latter option! Note that if you go that way, it's all about white people, especially in the construction of "working class"!
But it doesn't matter. We're not appealing to voters, we're commenting on a weblog!
75 Carrhae was a bit of a one off though in that they typically (both before and after Carrhae) used infantry in addition to horse archers and cataphracts. In Carrhae they mostly used infantry for resupply in running arrows from the camels to the horse archers.
We're going to officially say that anything other than trans-supportive statements are not welcome here.
Man this blog's gonna be boring.
I can't believe I missed that joke.
Flouncing out over this anodyne statement is just adding indignity to some already extremely rude behavior. I find it hard to believe that transphobia is truly more central to the identity of anyone still here than actual community membership.
Flouncing is always, always a mistake. Just slip out quietly and then the inevitable return won't be as embarrassing.
Constantly judging all personal private decisions through the lens of whether it'll effect elections is just no way to live.
The good news is it hardly matters. There were good political reasons to subject the woke conversational arsenal but as certain commenters have demonstrated tactical concerns can be used to smuggle in personal prejudice.
85: Every once in a while one slips through to my artless fingers.
I support the post, but I have to demur from the glee with which Nworb and JPJ are being drummed out. (Shit, there wouldn't be a blog without JPJ, on whose site labs, baa, and I "met" twenty years ago; and she remains a dear friend IRL, as we say). They've been wonderful company with lots of interesting things to say, and I do hope they return when feelings have cooled.
Like I sort of said in the other thread, I've always liked the idea of this place as somewhere that mostly like-minded people could chat without necessarily hewing to any political orthodoxy, and I still think that's a good guiding principle, but the fact that this is a liminal space between the private and public means that occasionally a topic just can't be discussed in the friends-over-a-beer-at-night kind of way.
And whatever I think of trans rights as a political program, I think it's enormously difficult for any given individual to be trans, and I'll privilege the feelings of those members of this community who are carrying that burden over my own scrupulous honesty or need to be heard or whatever.
In conclusion, much love to all you hos and bitches, except nosflow. He's the worst.
I endorse most of 90. However, I don't have strong negative feelings towards nosflow.
I am restraining myself, with great effort, from responding to 46 with a historical analysis of 20th century feminist theory, but if anyone wants to read a book chapter that has some relevance (but with regard to a different political issue, not trans rights), I will share the PDF at the other place.
90.3 reminds me of a moment of personal growth this year, inspired by Taylor Swift lyrics (I spent the pandemic falling down the Taylor Swift rabbit hole and she's a great songwriter and I will fight you all about it) which is that "so casually cruel in the name of being honest" could have been written about me, and is not a good thing.
It's somehow the flip side to Nick Carraway's "Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known." But like sometimes you can just not be casually cruel.
90 actually captures a lot of my feelings too, but the flounces (including from NW, which I regret since I enjoyed his company on other topics) are an excellent last reminder of how very nice it will be not to have any more of Those Threads. Especially when it gets dressed up as concern trolling over elections or social policy, the particular bind of continually being put, unasked, in the middle of the maelstrom is something I think W.E.B. Du Bois expressed better than anyone: "How does it feel to be a problem?"
There's just so much Taylor Swift played in this house. It's really grown on me.
I'll also say that I'm deeply sad, as NW and Ume have both been a great comfort to me over the past several years, and Ume in particular has gone out of her way to be generous to me when I was experiencing personal crises in her hometown. I think the "gender-critical" position is morally wrong (and philosophically inconsistent, though who cares), and does not belong in this community, and I also hope that people I care about who hold this position reconsider and join me in community again.
Which is all to say that I support heebie's decision, but am also sad that people have chosen to leave rather than just not talk about one thing. Like if people had told me to stop arguing with Halford about religion I'd like to think I'd just stop doing it and not quit. Even though it's a topic that's really important to me, leaving my faith was the defining trauma of my life. But I don't have to talk about it everywhere.
I also agree with 90, et al . . .
I also wanted to comment Heebie for not trying to frame the OP as content-neutral, "we're making the rule because we think it will improve the quality of conversation" and, instead, just saying, "we are taking a position; this represents the general consensus of the blog, we don't expect everyone to agree but we're not going to argue about it here."
Yeah, I'm not gleeful about any departures for sure. I also know it's unfair to keep arguing with people after they've left, so I hesitate to say this; but it's more generally applicable, so I will: when making claims like "this is going to have dire consequences for the next two election cycles," why on earth wouldn't you put actual evidence on the table if you have it? Why would anyone just take your word for it? This is by no means limited to trans issues; people frequently make assertions about how issue x is going to destroy the Democrats (I'm sure I do it too) without anything to back them up. I know quibbling over poll numbers and going into the weeds for 50 comments over a single claim isn't much better, but maybe it's a little better? Maybe not... who cares, nothing matters, no one knows anything, everything sucks.
Whoops, in 99 "comment" should be "commend"
Not to beat a dead horse, or otherwise further earn ogged's ire, but I don't think (re 90.2) that liminality between public and private is really the operative concern here. I wouldn't want to be part of a group of friends who, over beers, earnestly discussed what rights, if any, Jews should have in civil society. Nor would I want to associate with them in the mere knowledge that they discussed such things over beers without me. That may be a requirement on hewing to a political orthodoxy, but if so, it's a sign that "not necessarily hewing to a political orthodoxy" isn't always a virtue. Some orthodoxies are fine!
And I wouldn't even say that JPJ (from whose site I too found unfogged, lo those many years ago) or NW have been "drummed out". They could just ... shut it, on this topic. And yet they couldn't even manage to shut it in the very comments in which they announced their intent to leave rather than abide by the policy. Self-out-drummers!
However, I don't have strong negative feelings towards nosflow.
What do I have to do to change this?
100: Yes, anyone who says, "the Democrats will do badly in the next two cycles" will probably be right and anyone who says, "the Democrats will do less well than they should given the fecklessness of the Republican party" will almost certainly be correct, but that doesn't mean that they're correct in their theory about the cause.
Failure is over-determined.
What do I have to do to change this?
Nothing special!
I wouldn't want to be part of a group of friends who
I think people should have the space to be behind or ignorant to just kinda weird on some topics. As an example, I have a friend--smart guy, not a right-winger--who for some reason just can't shake the thought that maybe, just maybe, there's something to racialized intelligence studies. I've had long arguments with him about it, and at this point we just don't discuss it, but in the private context, knowing each other as we do, we can just move on. If someone showed up here and started floating those ideas, it would quickly and rightly be shut down immediately.
Nothing special!
I was addressing BG!
. I've had long arguments with him about it, and at this point we just don't discuss it, but in the private context, knowing each other as we do, we can just move on.
Well, on the one hand, I wonder if he thinks that the studies indicate that, say, Iranians tend to be unintelligent; on the other, if you just don't discuss it then that's not really the same as chatting without hewing to an orthodoxy, because you're deliberately skirting that domain! So I conclude that, despite your awkward phrasing, you actually agree with me in every particular.
Democrats are going to get crushed in 2022 because the President's party almost always gets crushed in the midterms. "in the 19 midterm elections between 1946 and 2018, the president's party has improved upon its share of the House popular vote just once." (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-presidents-party-almost-always-has-a-bad-midterm/) There is no position on trans rights or any other issue that Democrats could take to forestall this.
Also, and I'm sorry to beat a dead horse, but Unfogged is an eclectic web magazine, not a candidate for office or a political party. Unfogged cannot win or lose a midterm election. Not everything fucking thing has to be about elections all the fucking time.
Was this literary agent a commenter here, or was the phrase "eclectic web magazine" coined twice? https://nelsonagency.com/2007/12/editor-letter-for-house-of-mists/
I think technically we were a webzine.
No, no, an eclectic web magazine for the discriminating news consumer.
I can't remember the details, but the original joke was something to do with a court case? Or an administrative ruling? That a "web magazine" was protected by the first amendment just like a print one. So I think the phrase was out there. Not sure about "eclectic".
LB has it. This is when we became a web magazine. This is where that link goes. And I don't remember when we officially became eclectic. We were, of course, unofficially, always already eclectic.
A terminus ante quem is given by when The Guardian described unfogged with the "eclectic" part.
115: Yes, but I thought Armsmasher was quoting an earlier article written by an outsider about the Flophouse.
It's not the big NYtimes flophouse article which says "Becks, the online handle for the fourth roommate, blogs for Unfogged.com, which focuses on politics, philosophy and culture."
Yeah, I thought 116 too, the NYT article.
Maybe the NYT article has been edited, but at any rate the phrase predates well that article which is after UnfoggeDCon, see comment 2.
117 was the one I was thinking of, where Nosflow wrote the impenetrable fortress of doldrums to keep people out. Oh well.
I endorse heebie's statement and would like to subscribe to your web magazine.
Unfogged has been a great blog and all, but I'm thinking of switching us over to a newsletter format.
122:. Everybody post your mailing address and preferred honorific.
Next she'll sell the newsletter to the New York Times.
105: Well, but ogged is kind of right. By asking what it would take to change my lack of strong negative feelings towards you, you've managed to induce negative feelings without doing anything special.
The great ones make it look effortless.
If Lourdes' belief that she is a woman is to be honoured and celebrated here
Damn right it is.
(I know the conversation has moved on, but it was teed up so nicely.)
OT: this really needed to be run past a few more people before they signed it off.
https://twitter.com/BatterseaPwrStn/status/1486763929909010439
130 I thought this, from your island, is quite something: https://twitter.com/lionelbarber/status/1488187564800499715
It's pretty good, isn't it? And Johnson just sitting there like a deflated balloon.
132: These days, almost nothing makes me feel good about political humanity at large, and in particular English-speaking humanity. In the US, this scandal wouldn't make a ripple for a rightwing politician. The NYT front page today talks about a literal effort to overthrow democracy by Trump, and even the NYT will forget tomorrow that this happened. (The word "Georgia" doesn't appear in today's story.) But the UK is on the case! Shame has not been entirely abolished! I find this heartening.
Chiming in to say that I heartily approve of the OP and am glad to see it.
What do I have to do to change this?
You could start wearing a Parth hide.
134: Same here. I wish I had something more valuable to contribute but I'd feel bad skipping this thread completely.
Barry! My lunar new year's resolution is to come here more.
Awl! How is everything? Check in via the check-in thread if you like...
Also glad to see the OP, belatedly.