They're deliberately trying to make us want to club all their columnists to death like baby seals, and make coats from them, aren't they.
Boy, she sounds like fun:
I would meet a man, and our first date would consist of that lovely unraveling of mundane details. Then would come the second date. With our vital stats out of the way, we'd begin to discuss other, seemingly benign, topics. But somehow, every road led to sexism. A comparison of our favorite movies turned into me complaining about Quentin Tarantino's senseless misogyny. Perusal of the dessert menu somehow ignited a screaming match about women's socially imposed body-image issues.
Often there was no warning. One minute we would be talking baseball, and the next we'd be embroiled in a standoff about pornography, which would end with me refusing to return his calls and express mailing him a copy of Catharine MacKinnon's "Only Words" without a note.
Astounding. Condescension is the only appropriate response, but how effective would it be? You'd run right up against "Oh, this is meaningful to young people, and speaks to their concerns."
And like she has absolutely no sense of who she should be dating. I mean, I've had conversations with dates about misogyny, but not ones that got ugly, mostly because if you have any sense you can figure out who's going to have a problem with talking about misogyny over dessert before you go out with them. This is not that difficult.
And, you know, what does the Southern accent have to do with anything? You know what this is? It's a plot to make urban coastal liberals look insane and unpleasant.
I'm pretty sure that all of the "Modern Love" pieces are submitted by freelancers and that the Styles section editors aren't terribly picky and don't pay very well for them. One of the first "Modern Love" pieces I ever saw was a sarcastic review of contemporary dating manuals by a grad student in my department, though, so perhaps I'm biased.
I don't think it's a plot. I think it's a management that doesn't know or value what it should.
Huh. A man who I once xeroxed a Dworkin article ended up marrying me. And I'm pretty sure I've bitched to him about Tarantino's misogyny, too. Good thing he didn't get the memo about how my having opinions about sexism made me a castrating bitch.
I was waiting for someone to comment on that piece.
"On one hand, I have all these stupid ideas. On the other hand, reality indicates that my ideas are really stupid. What a paradox the world is!"
If JM is right, there's the possibility this is tongue-in-cheek at least on the part of the writer. Doesn't excuse the editors.
Good thing he didn't get the memo about how my having opinions about sexism made me a castrating bitch.
Oh, I'm sure he knows by now.
OMG that illustration below the jump is not something Al found as a clever reductio of the implicit message of the piece.
Oh yeah, that was right in there in the print edition.
What is that women erasing in the picture?
Men are not damn good.
Men are hardly damn good.
Men are typically prevented by the patriarchy from being sufficiently damn good.
If feminists are going to change the world, they should come up with better graffiti.
I doubt that the writer is conscious of or in control of the gruesome ironies of the piece. But that's because she's probably about 23. 25 at the oldest.
The editors, though, are probably being very very cynical. They can excuse the piece with "hey, it's the legitimate experience of the young, clueness feminist on the dating scene!" But what they're really looking at is the bottom line--which, these days at the NYT, is measured at least in part by screenloads. Another grad student friend of mine--this one has an actual career as a freelancer and a staff writer at another publication--successfully pitched a piece to the NYT and asked all of her friends to view it as often as possible from as many IPs as possible. The stories that get emailed around or blogged are the successful ones, especially for the comparatively fluffy features sections. So, the editors are happy that we're sitting around talking about how stupid this article is.
12: Yeah, but it's too late. Bwahahahaha.
She's published a book called "Dump the Schlump" about how to find "A Quality Man."
Um, wow.
J. Courtney Sullivan’s first book, Dating Up: The Ultimate Guide to Finding the Man You Deserve is due out from Warner Books in February 2007.
Okay, I just wrote something really bitchy and castrating in response to this article, but I deleted it because, you know, the most important thing about upholding my ideals is to ensure that everyone still thinks I'm sexy.
And, you know, not some shaven headed Smith girl or similar.
Can't those of us already in thrall to your mystery and beauty, and therefore in no danger of not finding you sexy, see what you wrote?
I wish I weren't anonymous so I could link to the picture of me, bald, with pink ink streaming down my head. I love that picture.
Dating up?!? Ok, now I officially hate this woman.
An ex-boyfriend once told me that he couldn't stand two-faced women. "And by two-faced," he explained, "I mean the sort of woman who wears so much makeup that she looks one way when you're out with her at night, and then totally different the next morning. That's why I love the way you look. You don't feel the need to get all dolled up in blue eye shadow -- you're just so natural." When we moved in together nine months later, the jig was up. Living together has plenty of benefits, but preserving the "I just rolled out of bed looking this way" myth isn't among them.
the sort of woman who wears so much makeup that she looks one way when you're out with her at night, and then totally different the next morning.
Oh. Wow.
Calm yourselves, children. Rest easy in the knowledge that the man she ends up marrying will start sleeping with her little sister or best friend in a little under a decade. And, thanks to this article, we won't have to feel bad for her.
Geez, Barbar, don't do that. Until I clicked through your name, I thought that was you talking, and was wondering what to say.
I am now completely convinced that this is a plot to make feminists look bad.
23: It was mostly screaming and then doing my imitation of the NYT saying, "Now, honey, we know you care about things like 'the environment' and 'women's rights' and 'the poor' and we think it's really really sweet that you have such big, nice thoughts! But wouldn't it be nice if you'd just put on some makeup, get in Grandma's SUV and head out to the Hamptons with us? Maybe there will be cute boys there!"
Didn't 26-7 get gone over extensively in old comments (snf) in re Ogged's (hbuh) complaint about women who wear makeup?
I was going to say I just now realized that Barbar is a woman, but I clicked on the link and 26 is a quote from J. Court. So, nemmine.
Actually, I think 26 pretty much definitively answers the question posed in today's other post. (I hope linking with new stuff is okay.)
Are you saying he moved in with you, natural conceptions and all, never having seen you just rolled out of bed, or that he must have overlooked or been blind to momentary lapses, and when he was living with you, the scales fell from his eyes?
One of my roommates actually is very much that sort of woman. I lived with her for at least three months before I saw her without her makeup. She looked totally different: skin color and texture, shape of face, eye color. I think she looks better without the makeup, but controlling that aspect of her self-presentation is very important to her. She's a Judith Butler devotee, btw, and rarely lacks for, ahem, intimate companionship. But I've always wondered how she negotiates that moment of "darling, I'm now going to slip out of my makeup..."
Patty, who has lived with her husband, Ben, for almost a year, bought porcelain bathroom canisters as soon as she moved in, placing them on a wicker shelf. "I put tampons, Monistat, and anything else that's unpleasant to look at in them,"
Yeah, if you're going to keep your used tampons and Monistat applicators, it really helps if you pretty them up with a wicker shelf.
I suppose if you have sex with the lights out, and then get out of bed and dash for the bathroom to cosmeticize first thing in the morning, it's plausible.
OK, I was fooled by 26 too. But no, I don't think it answers the question posed in today's other post.
Whoops, 26 is actually a quote from a piece by the author of the Times piece (click the name on the post).
There is, of course, a wonderfully disgusting (and misogynist!) Swift poem on this very topic. Highly recommended reading.
36: No, you can leave the lights on if you use waterproof mascara and the new non-smudging lipsticks and makeup. After all, guys who are hung up on mystery and prettiness aren't all that likely to actually do anything that's going to muss your foundation. 'Course, you still have to get up before him, but that's okay because men like to be greeted with a hearty breakfast on awaking.
LB, I don't think that's what she does, though. At least not the "dash out first thing in the morning" part: since she doesn't put on her makeup before she's done her full exfoliation-washing-treating-lotioning regime, I tend to know at what hour the bathroom is occupied, and it's late.
She only sleeps with men with corrected vision, and withholds their contacts/glasses in the morning until she's done her face?
My dad and I used to argue about that poem; he found it effective and as you say, disgusting, my response was "so what if she does? it's all good." I'm starting to thing/k I may be a fetishist.
41: I'm telling you, smudge-proof makeup.
Kristina and Matt, who have lived together for 14 years, brush, floss and use teeth-bleaching trays every night. "It gives us some quiet time together while we watch TV and chill before bed," says Kristina.
Yes, there's nothing sexier than curling up with each other and your teeth-bleaching trays.
I think 43 officially crosses into TMI territory.
43: Well, it's where Swift comes down:
Such order from confusion sprung,
Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.
45 made me laugh out loud. I thought the same thing, sort of, but ne'er so well expressed.
I'll auto-pwn myself in advance, but what's TMI territory?
I am now completely convinced that this is a plot to make feminists look bad.
See, I don't think so. For example (clicking on my name), from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly:
Karen Kosztolnyik ’90 is a senior editor at Warner Books, where she acquires fiction and nonfiction for all divisions, including hardcover, trade, and mass market. Her acquisition interests are commercial women’s fiction, chick lit, romance, suspense, and nonfiction concerning women’s issues, current events, and pop culture. She has acquired and edited New York Times bestseller Carly Phillips; Deanna Kizis (How to Meet Cute Boys); and Megan Crane (English as a Second Language). At press time, Kosztolnyik had just signed J. Courtney Sullivan ’03’s post-postfeminist take on the dating world, Dating Up: The Ultimate Guide to Finding the Man You Deserve, due out next fall. Kosztolnyik lives in New York City with her husband.
I feel like a lot of commenters here have thought through a lot of the feminist issues; I don't think this is true for most of the population. And so there is a big market for contrarianism and contra-contrarianism re: "romance."
Oh, she takes it all off at night, though. I'm not exactly sure whether it's before or after sex, and I doubt there's a strict law about it. No, I suspect she and her partners have figured out some kind of complex dance around her makeup regime. (I haven't asked because she's rather reserved and would take questioning on such matters as rude and judgmental. She's abroad this year, but otherwise it would be SIX YEARS now that we've lived together.)
As for the Swift poem, dude, if Strephon is poking around in a lady's chamber pot, he's getting what odors he deserves.
"Oh, this is meaningful to young people, and speaks to their concerns."
I'm sure this is explained elsewhere, but how do you create links in comments?
50: There is. But isn't that partly because of the plot to make feminists look bad?
The fact that J. Courtney Sullivan went to Smith's and "joined a campus women's group and studied up on gender issues," and apparently is now pursuing a career as a romantic advice writer, is a damning indictment of somebody, I think. Probably her.
Like this. And in a recent enough comment that it can still be linked to, yet.
Barbar, the link command is [a href="link"]text[/a]. Where the square brackets are replaced by the little left and right angle thingies above the comma and period, link refers to the code in "link to this comment," and text, obviously, refers to what ppl actually read when it posts. If that makes sense.
55: But who is creating this plot? Smith graduates working as publishers and writers?
In other words, Unfogged commenters should probably pitch their ideas about "Modern Love" to the fucking NYT because, hell, we're not getting paid as it is, and we might as well raise the Gray Lady's hemline tone.
I vote for the mysterious Alameida.
No, no. The plot's been around for ages. Think of Rush Limbaugh, Fatal Attraction, and all the Hillary-bashing.
I got a big ass lecture yesterday from one of my commenters about how using the phrase "The Man" proves that I'm sexist.
text, obviously, refers to what ppl actually read when it posts.
Actually, he frequently goes off on a tangent, and anyway his gender's pretty well known, no need to dance around it.
Clearly, The Man is attempting to keep you down.
67: Yeah, that was pretty much my response.
66: Where is he, anyway?
Babar, I read you as denying JM's cynicism theory, which convinced me, and saying "No, they think it meets a need, and is what they really think" Which is what I thought first until I realized I would rather believe in cynicism. What do you think? Whose fault is it that a Smith graduate thinks and writes on this level, and gets published?
Speaking of "The Man," where in the world are these lyrics from? I can't remember, and it's annoying me:
You're never going to get ahead
Giving head to the man.
I heard a story from a friend that one of her classmates, a Smith grad, claimed all they did there was smoke pot and talk about hot boys. Her profs were really nurturing and never criticized, and when she showed up at her Ph.D. program, burst into tears every time a prof told her she was wrong. She ended up leaving school to RV around the country with her totally-hot pot dealer.
I'm sure this isn't the quintessential Smith experience, but it sounds quite possible. I worked in the Northampton area for a summer and man, Smith's local vibe is odd.
There are so many syntactical errors in 72 that I realize I must go home and make dinner.
I guess I think the median response to the Times article will be something like:
"Yeah that's true -- feminism is good and stuff, and I'm a feminist, but women like men to hold doors open for them, which is kind of ironic, but that's life." Which is actually exactly what the surface message of the article is. I don't think the rationale for the article is just to piss readers off (it could be, but I think the % of readers who will be pissed off by it is disturbingly small).
I agree that the feminism is attacked as being for man-hating lesbians who shave their heads; let's call this portrayal the Plot Against Feminism. What is distrurbing is that this self-proclaimed feminist, who went to Smith's and supposedly was very concerned with women's issues, sees no problem with furthering the Plot Against Feminism.
So what does this mean? I don't know for sure, but my first guess would be that her interest in feminism in college was somewhat superficial. She's just a kid, it's giving her a cause to rally around and identify with. It's not quite mature. She graduates from an all-women's college and heads off to New York and life is more complicated than she thought. Big surprise. Her interest in feminism apparently never went deep enough to cause her to think about the Plot Against Feminism, so reality disarms her and she basically joins forces with it, while still aware of unequal wages and domestic violence issues.
So she's young and stupid. But, a lot of people think like her. So many, in fact, that I don't think the people publishing her are even that cynical. They engage in the Plot Against Feminism but many of them are probably self-described feminists who don't think the Plot Against Feminism is wrong (because they think that some feminists are just really "extreme"). And if they don't even consider themselves feminists, then they almost surely don't think the Plot Against Feminism is wrong, or even a plot. So I don't think it's that cynical.
Now eventually people make money off of the Plot Against Feminism (Caitlin Flanagan), and they will make transparently stupid statements -- things they know full well are ridiculous -- just to sell books. This is cynical. Even then, however, someone like Caitlin Flanagan thinks that her "deep-down" idea -- that feminism doesn't quite work -- has something to it. At least I think so.
Whence the Plot Against Feminism? I guess I think that most people are pretty attached to the status quo. They can get riled up about salient injustices (men beating women, men out-earning women, women not being able to vote) but a lot of them don't spend too much time thinking about the less salient ones. When they get older and more comfortable with life, they can inoculate themselves from challenges by saying, "Hey, I'm a feminist. But..." And when the status quo is challenged, they take it personally.
I might be underestimating the control that centralized media has on our thoughts. Maybe the Plot Against Feminism is more plot-like than I am giving it credit for. Cable news in particular seems remarkably shameless (the Daily Show does a good job exposing them by juxtaposing clips from a variety of shows). But I see the Plot Against Feminism as something that foot soldiers will carry out without much supervision.
Oh, I agree with you Barbar, re. foot soldiers. But I do think that there's a plot, and I think it has to do, really with various things--most importantly the increasing pressure that women's participation in labor markets has to do with unpaid labor at home.
I actually think that the whole "I'm a Feminist, but. . ." thing is something people tend to grow out of, rather than into. IME, women get more radical as they age. I think partly it's just maturity, and worrying less about what other people think, and partly its because the illusions one has when young and single about how really all the battles have been won tend to run into some hard realities the further on you go, work-wise or relationship-wise.
75,76: I think class is doing most of the work in this phenomenon.
So young women, at say twenty, are inclined to be "feminists, but" because of the dissonance of being attracted to, capable of loving, men and their crude, antagonist, caricature idea of what feminism is and what its issues are. And the PAF is at its most effective in having given them this idea of what feminism is and stands for. And the readings, courses and examples that would complicate this picture, as it were innoculating young miss against such thinking, reaches only a fraction of the people to whom these ideas will be important. And the PAF mostly operates through media, and stories like this reenforce it even while representing an attempt to be true to experience, because the young reader will accept that her story of what she learned of feminism at Smith was the real thing, and not a caricature, thereby framing the reader's expectations of what "feminism" is likely to have to say to her. So she thinks she knows what it means and says even if she doesn't. And God help the young men.
Where is he [text], anyway?
In Nashville (O old comments!), and I believe working at a non-law firm job that provides less occasion for obsessive procrastination.
I don't pay: well, to be more optimistic, part of this problem has to do with treating "feminism" which as a package that you can accept or reject, or identify with or not identify with. I've always thought of myself as a feminist even though I haven't always been a feminist. The transition didn't have anything to do with the label.
Perhaps this is of relevance:
Median household income for Sunday Times readers: $146,998
Median household assets including primary residence: $1,479,608
78, in many respects, hits the nail on the head.
When I teach Freshman writing, every single semester I do the gendered language talk. I've condensed it to about 20 minutes of the following:
1) the universal pronoun "he" makes a giant presumption, 2) many female (and male) readers will be offended, 3) avoiding the rhetorical problem with gender-neutral language is simply polite--but 4) investigating more closely how gender differences inform your argument or data is also very worthwhile.
Of those steps, I would consider 1-3 battles feminism has largely already won, and I present them as pretty much the minimum bar for writing at the college level. 4 I regard as the ongoing work of feminist scholarship, from which I admit straight up that I've benefitted even though it's not my specialty.
Which has gotten me labelled in a few anonymous professor reviews as a radical feminist.
My friends who actually do feminist or gender-theory scholarship just laughed.
82: That's a great way to inject your commie pinko agenda, while seeming to discuss grammar. Huzzah.
Do you suggest to your students that they use "he or she" {or "she or he"}? Or just mix it up: sometimes "she," sometimes "he"? Or something else?
I mostly just use "he", as I've already admitted at the Weblog, at least partially because "he or she" quickly becomes unmanageable when one's in the business of constructing tasty syntax bombes.
It's more like, instead :
"Each student should finish his homework on time." (Sexist!)
Or:
"Each student should finish his or her homework on time." (Wordy!)
Or:
"Each student should finish their homework on time." (Subj-verb disagreement! Ungrammatical!!!1!1!)....
The gender neutral should be, when possible:
"Students should finish their homework on time."
Mixing it up is, I'm afraid to say, a pretty terrible solution. The average reader will be totally confused if the pronouns switch around arbitrarily, and if the order isn't arbitrary, then the writer should put a little more thought into why one pronoun is appropriate in one place and not another. And if a writer does that thinking, it would be important to present that case to the reader: undergraduate research papers aren't often read like poetry, as it were...
Ok, w-lfs-n is the sexiest. And you'd be IN TROUBLE in my class.
David Vell/eman is on my side! I have a greater self-understanding than you!
"A best-selling legal author with more than a dozen titles to his credit, Bryan Garner is also the editor-in-chief of Black's Law Dictionary in all of its current editions. He has taught at several law schools, and is the president of LawProse, Inc., a Dallas-based company that provides writing and drafting seminars to lawyers and judges throughout the United States."
Being the constructed language nerd that I am, I would be in favor of introducing some set of gender neutral personal pronouns and using those throughout, damn the weirdness. You know, like "ve, ver, vis, verself", or others. But, there is much to be said for singular they, not the least being that the construction was used by such writers as Shakespeare and Austen.
"Each student should finish their homework on time." (Subj-verb disagreement! Ungrammatical!!!1!1!)....
Geoff Pullum is on my side. (Actually I usually use generic "she.")
I've come around to singular they myself, despite having been Fowler-catechised as a child. The reason Shakespeare and Austen used it is that English has obviously needed such a construction for hundreds of years.
I don't know who that is.
My illusions are shattered. Bryan A. Garner? No bells?
If you don't know Garner's American Usage, I think you'd like it. Seriously. He's not shy about calling some usages "vulgar" and others "pretentious," but he's not stuck in the 1940s. It's a good resource.
I'm not really as strict about the singular they as I pretend to be in Freshman Writing. I don't really like it, but it doesn't grate as much as the universal he does. However, at the freshman writing level, even at my snooty university, enough students show a poor grasp of basic grammar that I think it advisable to be somewhat grammatically dogmatic.
I would sooner use "ve" than a generic "he" or "she". And I would sooner rip off my fingernails one by one than use "he or she".
Garner's American Usage is great. I like the small caps he uses to write something off as a NEEDLESS VARIANT.
I knew the universal he trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, but I didn't know he grated.
Were we surrounded by gendered objects, like the speakers of Romance languages, we could keep our pronouns and our fingnails too. But for us, gender means gender, and all of our objects except ships are its.
They it is.
I knew the universal he trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, but I didn't know he grated.
You're daring to make universal He jokes with a female jack mormon? Have I told you the one about Heavenly Mother, whom He wanted to keep out of the world's ugliness? And, no, I don't really think that Julia Howe meant something so different.
Damn, this would really be a perfect time to link to Bitch PhD's "How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb" joke.
An update on my comedy career, everyone: the problem is my short-term memory. I need to print out that thread, study it on the damned subway, pick out the jokes I could ever plausibly carry off, and practice. First, I need a printer... and then, um, the world will be mine!
I prefer "e" to "ve".
I prefer "My Humps" to either.
It's the first time I've read it, but Cassinus must have been familiar with the poem in 39. (I've linked this before, but that comment is no longer linkable.)
Oh my god, y'all. I need help. I have a commenter at home who is plaguing all my posts with long explanations about how the progressive liberal movement has to be SEXY *and* SMART to be effective. He thinks reading critical theory and pondering it is far more important than actively doing anything about suffering. He commands all women in his presence to exercise at least five hours a week and spend the rest of their time reading Derrida. He thinks he agrees with me, but just wants to brush up my rhetoric, which is dumpy, frumpy, and altogether too lumpy for the masses by getting rid of any hippie-sounding language of kindness, feminism, and anti-suffering. And he won't stop commenting, despite many many suggestions by everyone. He's ruining my discussions. What can I do?
Oh my god, y'all. I need help. I have a commenter at home who is plaguing all my posts with long explanations about how the progressive liberal movement has to be SEXY *and* SMART to be effective. He thinks reading critical theory and pondering it is far more important than actively doing anything about suffering. He commands all women in his presence to exercise at least five hours a week and spend the rest of their time reading Derrida. He thinks he agrees with me, but just wants to brush up my rhetoric, which is dumpy, frumpy, and altogether too lumpy for the masses by getting rid of any hippie-sounding language of kindness, feminism, and anti-suffering. And he won't stop commenting, despite many many suggestions by everyone. He's ruining my discussions. What can I do?
Oh fuck. Sorry about the double.
And 103: I love Cassinus and Peter. Swift is best when he's stealing his own best lines.
What can I do?
Tell him he's being disruptive. Then ban him. Liberal sites ban people far too rarely (not here, but other places...).
Disengage? by which I mean, don't respond, certainly not in detail. I stopped reading him, maybe others will do the same. Only now, after this plea of yours, did I go back and find a post where he brought up all of those themes, wow.
I may get to that point, but he's so tone-deaf he seems to have no idea why his opinions aren't wildly popular with us. He keeps saying, "Why is everyone deliberately misreading me? All I said is that we need to realize that the objectification of women has nothing to do with women's rights!" Shudder. I have told him I'm tired of his comments, he's said he's tired of making them, and I've suggested he find other places to make them. Still, he returns. Banning may be in order, but I keep hoping we can ignore him out of existence.
There's nothing to respond to in detail because it's the yammering of a self-absorbed moron. So all I do is say, "Yes, sweetheart, you have read some big books, haven't you! How wonderful! Now scoot along!" but to no avail. I will be patient. He will get tired soon.
It's the right thing to do: turn a shoulder to the person being tedious. It's been done to me, and I feel I learned from it.
Well, if he's inflammatory at all, there's not a way to ignore him out of existence without enforcing the "ignore him" command, which is to say, either deleting comments that engage him or asking commenters who engage him to not continue to do so. And anything in that direction is so much more complicated than simply deleting his posts. I would advise you not to be so squeamish about moderation. If looking at it this way helps: It's your community, and I think it's more than your right to keep the level of discussion high, it's your obligation to your readers.
The odd thing is, I know who this guy is, irl. He's a real pig, and everyone who's met him says so. Makes the whole thing doubly gross, because I knew when he started in that it would only go downhill.
Hee, hee. Yes. Except more about himself, too. "Hillary Clinton can't do what no other woman has done because I myself couldn't do it, and certainly I wouldn't hold women to any standard I don't hold myself! Plus, she is getting older, and only attractive women receive praise! Can't she get surgery to look really really hot? Then we'd maybe be talking!"
AWB - How did your double-post come about? Did you get a 500 error? What happened?
My server went offline just as I hit "post" so I reloaded when I came back online. My fault, not the server's.
118 - Great. Thanks. I'm a little over-cautious right now.
I've been at a (hated)Mets game for what feels like 12 hours. Does the outside world stil exist?
"Hated" modifies Mets, not Mets game.
AWB will join the union after a month.
AWB, you must ban him.
Back to the gender neutral language thing. You're all wrong. There's nothing wrong with "he or she" in moderation (or, for variety, "she or he"); "their" solves a real problem, and I let my students use it, with the caveat that they realize that more anal-retentive types will consider it "wrong"; and the best solution *is* to alternate between "she" and "he," both because doing so forces one to be more self-conscious about the very things JM, in her feminazi radicalism, articulates in (4), and because it solves *another* problem, that of confusing pronoun referents when discussing, say, the difference between two hypothetical people's reactions to X.
So there.
I have a commenter at home who is plaguing all my posts with long explanations about how the progressive liberal movement has to be SEXY *and* SMART to be effective.
We'd better started. The Right already has Katherine Harris shaking her tits on national television.
So who thinks the commentariat should gin up within itself a modern love submission?
Check submission guidelines first?
You know, I once tried to pitch to Nerve that they should have a "sex advice from bloggers" thing with me and Ogged, but they didn't bite. Dummies.
It would be awesomer if they actually had let us do it.
The "Modern Love" column skews personal. Ergo, Matt Weiner's lovelorn, underhanded attempts to set up other people on the blog should be perfect. The pseudonymous would have to have a damned good pitch to break through the prejudice--even for a one-off, let alone a regular thing. That's not to say it's not worth trying--or trying again. I don't know when you pitched that idea, B, but I have the sense that, in the last six months, the NYT has gotten hip to how blogs could mean cheap revenue.
AWB, I'm not a frequent visitor to your blog, but even at a brief glance, this "blainerunner" character is obviously detrimental. Even apart from what he's saying (which is pretty foul), the sheer volume of his comments is putting a bad dent in the comment culture. I second the motion.
Vance Maverick's comment does not currently appear in the recent comments sidebar. I hope this is not a bad sign.
tch, that article brings out my inner taxi driver:
[And now I have fallen for a man who understands and respects my feminist beliefs, and who also takes me to dinner, holds the door, calls me Babydoll in a slow Southern drawl. ]
Its basic message is "see these feminists, bless'em, they act all angry but what they really need is a good seeing-to". Which makes it somewhat unsurprising that it got commissioned; there is *always* an audience for that message.
I reiterate, btw, my iron rule that someone writing in the newspapers about how much they love their new partner who is in many ways the perfect example of their gender, is usually engaged in displacement activity and the odds are good that this Southern gentleman will have dumped, thumped or murdered her within the quarter.
(semi ontopic: actual conversation from last weekend:
Ms Digest, pointing to her lipstick: Is this crooked?
Me: Well yes a bit darling, but it's the face you were born with and I love you.
I thought that joke deserved a better response than it got)
On blaine runner: I wouldn't ban him yet -- I'd move to dismissive abuse first: ("From what you're saying, you simply don't understand that, while you're calling yourself feminist, actual women find the positions you state oppressive and sexist. So which are you, lying or stupid?") You've been quite respectful, engaging him as if he had something useful to say.
This may not work, in which case I would ban, but his schtick seems to be "Reasonable man having a reasonable discussion" and that only works as long as people are taking him seriously at face value. In the face of abuse he'll either have to go away or change his schtick.
I thought that joke deserved a better response than it got)
You mean she didn't throw something at you? Slacker.
The pseudonymous would have to have a damned good pitch to break through the prejudice--even for a one-off, let alone a regular thing.
We wouldn't tell them it was a pseudonym.
I could write something about the tragedy of growing up named "LizardBreath". (Actually, people in high school did call me Lizard, and it wasn't a problem.)
Good point, Ben. If the public can accept "Berke Breathed" as a real person, surely an editor could take "Liz Ard-Breath" or "S.C.M. Timbot."
Oh, we're supposed to use our real fake names?
Many times in the last 300 years pseudonymity has stood for frankness, "what we really think", things that would get me in trouble if they knew it was me, etc. The stupider the name the better.
That's true, IDP, but I suspect the NYT editors are aware that part of the pleasure people get out of the "Modern Love" feature is incredulous mockery of anyone who would sign their real name to that.
Great, so we'll come up with an adequately piss-taking column, and sign it "Joe Drymala".
There you go again, JM. You and Babar had me perfectly whipsawed yesterday: Believe in mind and self-awareness! They're cynical! versus They really think that and those of us who know better are a tiny, tiny minority!
We'll sign it "Ben w-lfs-n". Not the blogger but the Modern Love columnist of the same name.
I'm thinking that the problem with the boys that the author used to know before she had this amazing epiphany that she Could Be A Feminist and Still Find Love was that she's a) probably 22, so b) in high school boys weren't interesting because they were high school boys.
On the pronoun thing, the only thing I tell my students is that there must be subject-verb agreement, so 'they' is right out with 'each', and that they should recognize that picking a gendered form, or using 'one', will lead their readers to a certain impression that they, as writers, should control. Also that naming examples ('Michael is a baby confronted with the color red for the first time. Does he have a concept blahdy bladhy') can help sidestep the problem.
And that repetitious 'he or she' makes me sneeze uncontrollably. And that I give Cs when I sneeze.
I'm all over singular 'they' -- there are some sentences where it clangs, for me, but rewriting to make it sound okay is fairly easy.
I think it's likely that we're both kinda right, that a lot of the features editors are probably calculating, deluded with life in their bubble-world, and market- and deadline-driven.
And AWB, ban him if he's giving you that much of a headache. You blog for fun; if he's not contributing anything, show him the door.
151 to 147.
I endorse the nomination of "Ben w-lfs-n" as our ambassador to Modern Love and move that his proposed column consist of relevent sentences from Unfogged chosen at random.
Headline: "Really, don't we all want to sex Motumbo?"
'He or she' perpetuates the mistaken notion that we live in a universe of binary opposites. It deprives people of the more interesting alternatives: 'undecided', 'not elsewhere classified', 'some or all of the above', 'decline to state', and 'if it's Tuesday this must be male'.
How can we insure that they are relevant, if they are chosen at random? Do you propose that we extract from unfogged all relevant sentences, and then run the selection algorithm on them? Or that we do a larger-than-necessary selection, and then cull from that appropriate sentences?
Slightly OT -- a friend whom I e-mailed Apo's "Simon and Garfunkel" link writes back today to say that she calls her girls "Night and daaaaaaaaaaaaay", and sings to them, "you are the ones, only you beneath the moon or under the suuuuuuuuuuun!" (This is a friend whom I am trying, unsuccessfully so far, to get interested in Mineshaftery.
I endorse the nomination of "Ben w-lfs-n" as our ambassador to Modern Love and move that his proposed column consist of relevent sentences from Unfogged chosen at random.
nose rings . I haven't read it. That's not a dash.( This is probably "cheap "is a prop to the dismay of American editors. So adorable. Apo, I don't name the shoes, ogged, how to operate the internet, but "kohl "is just using their computers to post my address. Royal Air Battalion? Residual Acid Benefits? Jung gur uryy ner fcbvyre gntf? V2hhdCdzIHdyb25nIHdpdGggdGhhdCBvbGQgc3RhbmRieSwgUk9UMTM/ "who's a national treasure ". There were two possibilities: 1. have you got no in with him, FL, that nothing about my high school period, and John, but we see Cheung along with for a day, poonhound by night! Old? Good to be fast-forward function Almost certainly false, since actually I think I fell asleep at work. But that their aesthetic judgments are sound. There's an AP article that makes coin tosses display predictable behavior over many iterations, and the Mansion, though. Actually what she has in an obsession with Miss Manners, but just in the total cost inclusive of airfare and accomodations is less than just their constantly being together, you have me, sounds reasonably early.) Sort of— the vacillation isn't an attribute of faith. That's all. I'm heading away from the NYRB( pay article, but since when? latus,-um sunt Nope! I don't share your predilection for excellence, in the thread after one( the one where Face goes undercover. Salad nicoise is really the case? Given the sorts of highly individual statistics coming into play depending on how many of you wiseacres would have brought in mad ca$h. The Cecil Taylor thing, you've got to pitch your attempt at a reading in LA some years ago. "I Just didn't respond RIGHT AWAY? Isn't that the one with either of those annoying servers that demands the www prefix. http:// elsa-benitez. nude-celebrities-site. It's a purely ceremonial utterance. I revealed the lie to your ankles........... us and. info don't appear too often either.
I endorse the nomination of "Ben w-lfs-n" as our ambassador to Modern Love and move that his proposed column consist of relevent sentences from Unfogged chosen at random.
Call Modern Love! Ben's already written his column.
Oh man, dig this randomly-generated sentence: "I wish I had to consult the dictionary much less than your own jam, Ogged.".
Don't we all.
Hey, so is comment posting incredibly slow for others as well?
161 - Yes, I'm emailing you about that right now.
I wasted at least an hour clicking on that random Unfogged generator when it was first posted, and I'm pretty sure I'm about to do the same again. It's even more fun when I imagine the results as a pitch to the NYT.
It looks like we still are having intermittant problems with mt-comments.cgi that cause it to spike the server. So, we definitely do need to go with a "the long term fix is to fix this, not just throw CPU/memory at it".
Very disappointing to have slowness on our own server but the good news is that we won't get shut down for it.
"Ben w-lfs-n"'s "Modern Love" column could discuss with relationship with ogged's mom, as in:
"So ogged's mom will move in with someone without having read any of the animal displayed cut-up, and that didn't suck ass."
"Shaggy dog stories are not legally enforceable, probably inhumane."
AWB, I assumed your commenter was either an elaborate troll or someone working out his own private obsessions. I have trouble believing he's a professor of anything. At the very least he's a boor. Since he's already declined to take your hints to go somewhere else, I'd take out the Banhammer.
Myself, I enjoyed "There's an AP article that makes coin tosses display predictable behavior over many iterations". Wow. That's quite an AP article.
A White Bear, you could always try the direct approach with blainerunner.
It actually worked with abc123. He did post one more time on Unfogged, several weeks or so later, but then stopped after ogged reminded him that he'd been asked to leave.
In the interests of keeping this site as wonderful it can be, and making sure Ben never reads any Hegel, when you click on "Right" at the top of the page M/tch linked it doesn't take you to the right place.
Also, when you click on a "link to this comment" link in a thread that's been archived, the whole thread gets reloaded. Clicking intra-thread links in Innocence, for example, is v. painful. Is there a way to manage the redirects so this doesn't happen?
Is there a way to manage the redirects so this doesn't happen?
Yes. But I might not do it. I have reasons.
Anyway, the solution to your problem is, avoid Innoncence. Innocence: actually nocent!
You know, I'm mostly on board the Innocence sucks train, but there actually are some good bits.
172: Yes, that is impressive, although provoked and not so "reasonable" and all as blainerunner. That abc123 post was pure, unadulterated Trollery.
I like the new, bf "closed thread" message at the bottom of the page.
[This was spam, but people have responded to it so I'm not deleting it. LB.]
Nadir, not zenith. Zenith is the highest point. Nadir is the lowest point.
Hey 177, there's already a Michael who used to post here. Choose another name.
Choose another name.
And another product! Dude -- phenermine is so 2005.
Fucking spam. I was going for having all comments on the recent comments list.
Where is everyone anyway? Is it night in all the US timezones now? That's never stopped people before, though.
Doesn't PM mean 15:30? I can never keep track of that either.
Yes, PM means add 12 to the number of hours. I'm noting your comment about Astrid Lindgren's (Somebody) on the Roof character, which books I remember seeing recommended a while back -- was it perhaps here? by you? -- Last time I was at Scandinavia House I asked about those but they only had a couple of non-Pippi Lindgren books, not including those ones.
Also I'm a bit jealous of you for your personal connection to Tove Jansson. Did your grandmother have any good stories to tell about her?
Yes, now I remember. It all makes sense. It's a long weekend in the US, everyone has Monday off, so I think a lot of people are travelling somewhere, and most are inclined to get away from the internet.
None I can remember at least, to my great chagrin. I really regret I never asked her about it. Farmor wasn't the most talkative person.
As I recall, my grandmother wasn't very self confident then and Tove was self assured and full of vigor. She always tried to boost farmor's confidence. And she was sweet and kind, a good friend.
Ah -- so, this hasn't been relevant for 15 comments, but, after I had very exhaustedly explained to the commenter in question that we had reached an impasse and it was time for him to peddle his wares elsewhere, he couldn't stop himself from posting one more big one about how objectifying women is really centrally important to the success of feminism, and that I should listen to him because he's a "sexually successful male." After I deleted that one for its complete inability to inspire any response other than screaming obscenities, he hasn't returned.
I am trying to figure out what a "sexually successful male" is. Does that mean someone who (a) finds the right hole to stick his penis in 7 out of every 10 tries? (b) sticks his penis in many different holes every day? (c) sticks his penis in the same hole many many times per day? (d) is pretty sure he could stick it in any hole he wanted to, but he's too much of a gentleman to prove it? (e) is able to force any hole he wants to yield to his penis by ridiculing the attached female's looks or intellect?
Really, A White Bear, I think you're reading too much into this.
So did you end up getting into Tia's pants?
And if so, M/tch, were you successful?
When did we learn that M/itch was trying to get into Tia's pants?
When he asked Tia on her date if she wasn't reading too much into the film they saw.
When he asked Tia on her date if she wasn't reading too much into the film they saw.
Shit. See, I have this habit of doing things wrong, but hitting "POST" and then yelling, "Fuck!" and hitting "Back" and then correcting it and hitting "POST" without seeing if the mistake was registered. My server is fast when it wants to be.
You shouldn't admit it. Just attribute it to some kind of server error, and then watch Ben and Becks run around in a panic. It's so cute when they do that.
When did we learn that M/itch was trying to get into Tia's pants?
Isn't it assumed that we all are?
Are they appropriate opera attire or something?
See, they've learned to use the word "cool." It's like they know our secret young hip fresh language.
You know you're a sexually successful male when your partner pats you on the back post-issue and says, "good job." It's all about feedback.
That happened to me once! I was having first-date sex with a stranger, and when I came, he said, "Good job," all serious-like. It was unnerving.
Before I get into anyone's pants I think I should to get to the bottom of this "female orgasm" rumor.
My server is fast when it wants to be.
Server?
There used to be an old-school 70's-style feminist website all about the myth of the vaginal orgasm, and when you clicked on the linked words "vaginal orgasm," you got a "This site was not found!" error. I don't think it was intentional, since everyone knows feminists don't have a sense of humor, but I laughed and laughed.
198 is an example of a problem I've seen a few times, namely that the "link to this comment" link doesn't link directly to that comment but just to the archinve page the original post was on.
I've been working around it by copying and pasting from View Source, and the href is correct there, and I've been meaning to report this issue, but have always before forgotten in the heady rush of using links in comments.
198 was a failed attempt to link to the actual post, not comments. 197 was an earlier failed attempt.
198 is an example of a problem I've seen a few times, namely that the "link to this comment" link doesn't link directly to that comment but just to the archinve page the original post was on.
This is simply false.
Still, there's something wrong with the "Link to this comment" links in archived threads.
Okay I'm not being clear.
I'll try to supply and example:
In the comments to this post:
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2006_05_07.html#004930
If I click on the "Link to this comment" link for this comment:
http://www.unfogged.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/unfogged/managed-mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=4930#343199
I get this url:
http://www.unfogged.com/static/comments_4930.html
That url, when pasted into a comment, does not lead where it should.
I have experienced no such wrongness. Can you give an example of a link doing the wrong thing? (It's true that the links cause the page to be reloaded, but that's because they still point to the cgi script which redirects one once again to the static page. I don't consider this a bug and it won't be changed.)
If I click the "link to this comment" link for that comment, I get this URL:
http://www.unfogged.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/unfogged/managed-mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=4930#343199
My conclusion is that at most one of the following things is true:
(a) you suck.
(b) your browser sucks.
(c) you suck and your browser sucks.
It's cool that urls automatically become links now though. When did that happen?
Also, while I'm thinking about it, how's about requiring that commenters input a Name, to avoid the "Oops, 84 was me" phenomenon? Not a big deal, but it might be nice.
Indeed, should we "view" the "source" for that page, we find this:
<a href="http://www.unfogged.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/unfogged/managed-mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=4930#343199">Link to this comment</a>
Can you even begin to bear the weight of your wrongness?
wrongness isn't heavy, but unbearably light, young ben
The way I got the correct url for the comment was by viewing source, so I knew that part was right. It's just that for some reason in what I'll stipulate is a sucky browser, though a very commonly used one, when I click on the "Link to this comment" link, it doesn't cough up the correct url, but this one:
http://www.unfogged.com/static/comments_4930.html
I was having first-date sex with a stranger, and when I came, he said, "Good job," all serious-like.
I'm never condescending like that to the strangers who sex me.
I was having first-date sex with a stranger, and when I came, he said, "Good job," all serious-like.
He was talking to himself, obvs.
This never occurred to me, SB. A great weight has been lifted from my mind.
I think.
No, no, I'm pretty sure he was talking to me.
Re: wrongness.
Ben, clicking the second link in M/tch's comment does indeed result in Firefox redirecting to the 3rd link. That does not go to the specified comment, but to the top of the comment thread.
Maybe on a Mac? I clicked on it in Firefox and got sent to
http://www.unfogged.com/static/comments_4930.html#343199
Oh, and I'm using windows. I guess I only implied that in 228.
I'm using Firefox, and it does the right thing for me.
In IE I get the 3rd link, but the browser window ends up in the correct spot. This is true of other "link to this comment" links, too.
What shows up in the URL bar when that happens?
I'm lacking clarity today. Sorry.
Every "link to this comment" link in IE sends me to this URL:
http://www.unfogged.com/static/comments_4930.html
But the window acts as if each link has been directed to the correct place.
(Except at the bottom of the page when it just loads the end of the thread. But that's always been that way when there's no more page to load, right?)
AWB, at least he didn't say "good girl."
That's funny, because afterward, he gave me a biscuit.
I hope he at least let you sleep on the bed. And took you for a walk in the morning.
That's funny, because afterward, he gave me a biscuit.
Marvellously done.
But isn't the one who doesn't come supposed to get the biscuit?
D'oh! Works in Firefox for Mac, but not in Safari. That will teach me to have multiple browsers open at once.
That will teach me to have multiple browsers open at once.
That's a funny way to spell "use Safari".
Well, someone better fix the Safari stuff, damnit.
My recommended solution is to use Firefox.
Safari worked when Ogged ran the place.
But all of the complaints about Safari drove him to quit.
There were no complaints, b/c it worked. You see.
*This joke does not render properly in Safari.
It's a short comment thread. I'm sure you can figure it out (comment 6).
The good news is that closing the old comments has seriously cut down on the spam. The bad news is that now they are spamming active threads.
249: Actually, I used Firefox. But I am not going to make it my default browser, because it's just slower than Safari, I'm sorry.
There were no complaints, b/c it worked. You see.
Yeah, that's the thing. I haven't changed anything in my "links to old comments" protocol, but it no longer works the way it used to, back in the good old days. I can work around it, but I just wanted to let the Unfogged tech support team know, since they asked us to report anything weird that we see.
Which reminds me, the raccoon(s?) stopped growling and hissing after that initial day I reported it.
229 In IE I get the 3rd link, but the browser window ends up in the correct spot. This is true of other "link to this comment" links, too.
Yeah, this is exactly what happens for me too. The window opens in the correct spot but the URL bar shows the third url:
http://www.unfogged.com/static/comments_4930.html
Before I would just paste what was in the URL bar into the href, but that no longer works. So I view source and find the right url and paste that in.
So I view source and find the right url and paste that in.
Dude, I don't care what you do in the privacy of your own home, as long as you don't shove it in my face.
The injured/sick raccoon stopped hissing b/c it died. Prepare for the really bad smell.
Or else the mama moved the babies further under the house, or something.
I just tried M/tch's experiment in Safari on a Mac, and not only did I get that URL in the URL bar, the browser didn't even open to the right comment.
I also recommend not using Safari. I hate Safari.
then came from th'internetly static w-lfs-n's cry profane, ecstatic
If I may take some credit for spurring 256:
then came from his frustrations mattic w-lfs-n's cry profane, ecstatic
We only need to fight indigenous xenophobia.
I love Safari! Ben, don't you love me any more?
I could not love thee, bitch, so much
Hated I not Safari more.
WONTFIX
Why not?
Also: the raccoon is still alive, and we've had plenty of momma raccoons avec babies under the portch and/or in the tree hollow in seasons past, but this sound was really weird and in all my years among the raccoons I've never heard one of them make a sound like that.
Of course I don't know why I'm telling you about this, ben probably won't fix the raccoon either.
WONTFIX
Or perhaps more to the point, why did it change? And did the change bring about some other benefit that's worth sacrificing BitchPhD's love for?
Let's make love, not browser-war.
CHANGENOTSOGOODBUTNOTSOBADWECANSTAYFRIENDS
In a way there was no change: Previously all archived comment threads exhibited this behavior in Safari, it is simply that there were no archived comment threads.
(More seriously, it would seem that the behavior was introduced by archiving; which certainly has benefits, though whether they are worth the sacrifice of BPhD's love is a decision only young Ben can make.)
Or perhaps more to the point, why did it change?
Part of an attempt to lighten server load.
I can't help wondering whether WONTFIX because CANTFIX because LAMEASS?
Also, I don't use Safari, it happens in IE too.
Part of an attempt to lighten server load.
A likely story.
Also, I don't use Safari, it happens in IE too.
Oh well now I care.
M/tch, to help you help us more efficiently process your comments on a going-forward basis, I've libertized myself to provide you the following template for your royalty-free, non-exclusive use. Check all that apply:
[ ] Yay raccoons
[ ] Boo w-lfs-n
[ ] Hey hey HEY!
Hey M/tch, rather than (a) clicking on the "Link to this comment" text, then selecting the URL box and Edit | Copy, or (b) viewing page source and copying from there, why not follow this simple procedure: Hover the mouse pointer over the "Link to this comment" text and rather than left-clicking, click with your right mouse button (were you using a Mackintosch, you would "click while holding down the Command key" or some ++bogus thing like that) -- a small menu will apear next to the pointer which contains among other things, an item named "Copy link location" or "Copy shortcut" or some similar. If you select this item, the link to the comment will be on your clipboard and you will not need to worry about how your browser handles redirection.
[x] Yay raccoons (I'm back to the strange noise = rabies theory.)
[x] Boo w-lfs-n (You'll fix for stupid IE but not Safari? Puhleeze.)
[x] Hey hey HEY! The proposed fix in 274 does not, in fact, work on the Mac. Because while loading the page, the url magically changes for some completely inasne reason having to do with someone's apparent programming incompetence.
Not that I'm pointing fingers.
You'll fix for stupid IE but not Safari? Puhleeze.
What's a six letter word that ends in "asm"?
There's no such thing as female sarcasm, SB.
Of course that's a seven-letter word so NEMMINE.
Standpipe,
The form needs some work, viz:
[] Yay TMK!
[] Yay bitchphd!
[] Disparagement of Chopper's manhood and/or mother
[] Attempt to get into Tia's pants
[] Attempt to see what's in apostropher's shirt
Also, we need some sort of exception-handling scheme for the odd comment such as this.
I do want to stress that I have real affection for the role w-lfs-n plays here at Unfogged, and I sincerely appreciate all his work on the site (I don't know how it ever ran so perfectly back before he got the keys to the place).
Also, I was just reporting a change that I'd noticed, not demanding a fix. TMK's solution works great, and now I feel stupid that I didn't know about or think of doing it that way before. TMK: Unfogged tech support with a human face.
Of course that's a seven-letter word so NEMMINE.
Gah. I can't count letters.
Any idea why this comment is so hard to find via the normal "Google site search" routine?
I have a hypothesis.
277: The only six-letter word ending in "asm" that comes immediately to mind is "orgasm." But this thread has already established that the only way to achieve sexual success is to meet the needs of the particular woman in question.
Also, we established somewhere else at some point that I'm terribly gullible.
Ah, I forgot the following nitpick:
216 My conclusion is that at most one of the following things is true
Is this really what you meant to say, ben?
[Redacted] - [Ummm...might have been indiscrete about someone's identity, might have not. I'm all confused. - Becks]
I think we do (but I daren't say more).
No problem, then. If you think I should delete 287 due to indiscretion, please give me a heads up.
A certain mouse pointer technique could answer 287.
This comment can be deleted, if you wish.
I do think it's funny that no one in that thread seems to care what the acronym means. Maybe they all know.
216 My conclusion is that at most one of the following things is true
Is this really what you meant to say, ben?
Yes, but the explanation is complicated.
Yes, but the explanation is complicated.
Actually I'm pretty sure it's very simple.
Can someone tell me to what this refers?
Can someone tell me to what this refers?
I could, but it's pretty complicated.
You see, it has to do with making our theoretical premises explicit, along with the presumption that merely choosing (a) when both (a) and (b) are true, and in the presence of (c), would be an effective lie. Or something.
Or something.
Yep, that's what I thought.
Hooray! Post title links in archived comments pages work! Praise be to whoever is responsible for this!
This comment contains a hint for 294.
Hooray! Post title links in archived comments pages work! Praise be to whoever is responsible for this!
They worked before, too. That hasn't changed.
For a while they were not working for me. Maybe some work and some don't? My browser is pure and true.
If you can point out to me some which don't, and some which do, I'd be overjoyed to look into the issue.
I can't remember any of the specific ones that didn't work, and all the ones that I just tried work, so I am happy to declare that the problem spontaneously solved itself. Or that an evil computer implanted vivid memories of such a problem in my brane. Anyway, no need for you to worry about it, unless you think you might be next.
brane
You just did this as a gift for complaining to Ben about the site, didn't you?
No, I'm much in favor of the spelling "brane".
Isn't it assumed that we all are?
How many times to we have to tell you?