EleCivil
-
Posts
838 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Posts posted by EleCivil
-
-
Poll: Santorum Comes From Behind in Alabama Three-Way
No new information, I just find the title of that article very amusing.
-
It's a shot of my city's skyline, with lyrics from one of my favorite songs, "Bike Rides and High Fives" by Rosa. I thought it matched well with the name banner I made for my author's page on Codey's World, which is the same skyline with the city's old railroad map juxtaposed. Call it "urban wanderlust" meets "nostalgiac resilliance." Heh.
-
Haha, the Saluki reminds me of Camy's emu avatar.
-
I contend pinching a butt is miles different from groping a crotch.
Eh...not really. Well, not to me. I see no practical difference between my shoulder, my butt, and my crotch - it's all anatomically pretty similar. Skin, nerves, bones, etc. Your right to place your palms ends where my flesh begins.
Getting groped by a stranger isn't a compliment. It's an invitation to get punched in the mouth.
Quoted for truth.
The moment it crosses the line to physical contact, all bets are off. I'm only talking about a "hey, you're hot! Wanna come back to my place" kind of conversation. Drunken grabs aren't part of my argument.
[...]
Even if there was a crotch-grab (which is possible), that's not an excuse for murder. A punch or Mace, that I can understand.
Agreed. Words are words and touching is touching.
I only bring this up because I don't like to be touched even on the best of days. Handshakes make me nervous, and putting your hand on my shoulder without warning can lead to me swinging and busting you in the jaw purely on instinct. I don't even let close friends or family hug me except on special occasions, when I'll grin and bear it for their sakes.
Point being, if you don't know who you're dealing with, keep your hands away from them. Physical contact is aggression, and it can trigger a fear response that you might not like.
-
Have any of you?
Er, yes. More than a few times. I'd say I've seen it a "handful" of times, but the pun alarm would go off.
...and then I'd be taken to the Punitentiary .
-
Check out this article - http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html
It's all about how Star Trek replicator technology would effect the economy. IThe main thrust is how in a post-scarcity world, B.S. becomes the most valuable commodity - "Oh, you're wearing REPLICATOR shoes? Mine were hand-stitched by a human artisan...very expensive, you know," or "We only sell authentic tree-grown apples - much more Earthy and satisfying than replicated apples! Totally worth paying for!"
You'll probably like the article's discussion on the internet's effect on book publishing and libraries - how the internet and ebooks are basically replicator technology, and how publishers are responding to post-scarcity data and information.
-
Hm. The article starts with "He made an unwanted sexual advance," which to me implies talking. It later states "He grabbed the other man's crotch." TALKING is completely different from TOUCHING.
Now, murder is out of the question, of course, but whether you're gay, straight, bi, asexual, or anything in between...if you put your hand on my balls without permission, you are foritting your right to keep that hand in working condition. I'm not going to play around with "Hey, I appreciate the attention, but..." Granted, I'll give you a good, clear warning along the lines of "Keep your hands to yourself or I'm going to leave you crying in a pool of blood"...the first time. Dislocating their shoulder or snapping their wrist is a legitimate response if they continue. No one has the right to touch you, and you do not have to react politely to sexual assault.
I've heard arguments along the lines of "Hey man, you should be flattered! What's wrong, are you closeted or something?" Switch up the genders, and see if that still applies. Picture a sleezy straight dude in a bar grabbing at a woman's chest. She pulls out a can of mace and lets him have it. Nobody sees a situation like that and says "Man, what's her problem? She should be FLATTERED that the dude wanted to drunkenly paw at her. What is she, a lesbian?" That kind of blame-the-victim bull doesn't fly in heterosexual situations - why should we tolerate it within the GLBT community?
(Don't get the wrong idea - I'm not making any claims about THIS case in particular. I don't know the details about what really happened - the crotch-grabbing may well have been a lie to gain jury sympathy, and even if it wasn't, you can't round up a crew to go hunt down and murder people for molesting you after the fact.)
-
I have long considered that a good rapper could present what I like to imagine asShakespeare in Rap.'.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/E4cMHnWIR9k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
-
Des, check this out:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sMOVrVS75cM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I think you'll dig it. It's one of his more "Zen" poems/raps.
---
Back on the topic of using rap in the classroom - it's cool, as long as it isn't forced and gimmicky. This guy seems to be having fun with it, throwing his energy behind it, and the kids are responding to that energy. Ron Clark does similar things at Ron Clark Academy with stellar results.
A couple years ago, our administration bought a pre-packaged "math rap" program - professionally produced tracks that the kids rapped along with, along with work books with things like "Find the radius of the 24-inch rim" and "Count the diamonds on the bling" and other such uninspired BS. It failed miserably. The teachers hated it, because all teachers hate being told to use specific methods that don't match with their own style (It's like if I told a writer that he HAD to write in the first person, because I used it and it worked for me). The kids hated it because they saw it as pandering at best and offensive at worst. The people who put together this program clearly did not "get" rap; they were using it to make money from schools desperate to close the "racial performance gap" (which is another topic to itself - I could write for hours about that one).
Once, one of our more astute students left that class to come talk to me (I am sometimes assigned as a mentor for kids who get in trouble all the time, usually for being too clever for their own good - they have standing passes to come find me when they're upset). He said "You know why I hate that class? It's a white woman acting like a black rapper stereotype to be funny, or ironic, or something. It's a minstrel show. If she really liked hip-hop, or knew anything about the culture, it could be cool, but this... It's like they looked at us and said 'These kids are too ghetto to just learn math. Let's teach them rap music instead. That's all they can understand." (I miss that kid - we used to play chess during lunch. He graduated last year.)
-
Ouch. Some low-blows in this topic. I'll just leave these here:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/b1S7qTsW5SY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2dmqqUGFCzg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Rap is much like all other forms of music: the vast majority is unlistenable crap, some of it is decent, and if you're willing to dig, you'll find a precious few moments of brilliance.
-
Yes, Ender starts out a very young boy. It's a story of a very unique boy going through a very different form of a military school education from essentially kindergarten through adulthood. It's also the story of a very intelligent and individualistic boy seeing the strangeness around him and instead of toeing the line like they want, he chooses his own direction, adamantly, and excels.
Yes! Something I love about the story is the way it handles the subject of gifted children. The way Ender, his siblings, and his Battle School classmates (especially in the Shadow books) are looked at by their parents, the state, their teachers, and each other all rings very true.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
One of the most difficult things to remember when dealing with gifted children is that they are intellectually able to understand concepts that they are not emotionally ready to handle - teachers of gifted children are trained to watch for signs of depression, suicide, stress, and mental breakdowns. Ender's "voice" in this story is spot-on - he knows how he's looked at, how he's treated, and what people are expecting of him. He knows that he's being abused by the system in a very deliberate, calculated way to achieve certain results, but he also knows that he's in no position to stop it. Concepts like moral relativity, duty, and the use of people as tools by the state are within his understanding, but when faced with the enormity of the situation, he still feels helpless to change his position in the world. He knows that the world is counting on him, and the stress of trying to live up to it breaks him quite thoroughly.
For a lot of gifted students, this sort of feeling is familiar - they're often told "You're too smart to __________," or "I'd expect better from you, because you're _______." They're told by the world that they were given a gift (that they never asked for), and now owe the world something in return. Or even worse, the feeling that they are not being asked, but simply being used by teachers, parents, or "the system" in general.
The basic story of Ender's Game - a genius gets recruited by the military, trained/brainwashed, and turned into a weapon - could be told using teenage or adult characters just as easily, but by using children, Card really addresses the mental stress of being labeled a prodigy at a young age. I think he's at his best when writing along this theme - Ender's Shadow and the Shadow sequels continue along that line more so than the rest of the Ender series, and I think they're stronger for it. (Although in the Shadow books, the realism is lessened quite a bit, because Card writes the main character as a superhero-level genius rather than just a gifted child - Ender is as smart as the adults around him, while Bean is smarter than anyone in the history of humanity. The classmates from Battle School get much more development, though, and the way they are treated by the governments post-war plays along the theme of being simultaneously used as a tool, feared as a weapon, and counted upon as a savior.)
-
Awesome. Also, here's rollercoaster chess:
There's a whole page of it here: http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/
-
Harrison Ford as Graff sounds good. I really hope they do this right. This is the director that brought us X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which worries me.
Man, I love that book. I'm currently reading it aloud to my after school tutoring group. And I agree with Pecman - Card's books on writing (Characters and Viewpoint, How to Write Sci-Fi and Fantasy) are great. Card's a jackass, but that doesn't make his work (well, SOME of his work) any less beautiful. I think it's possible to admire the art and not the artist.
-
As a teacher whose job description has, in the past, included recess duty, I've been hit with every piece of playground equipment imaginable. Even the occasional errant shoe. I've climbed trees and jumped fences to retrieve said equipment (and shoes). I've torn dress clothes in rough games of tag. I've had one kid distract me by asking me about books while another kid snuck up behind me and climbed up my back like I was a jungle gym. I've seen it all, done it all, and have written it all on 3x5 index cards for quick reference. And I would never in a million years consider banning balls from recess.
The other day, one of our school buses broke down, leaving some kids stranded at the school. Another teacher and I quickly organized a football game on the back parking lot (we don't have a field or a playground or anything - just concrete), with the two of us on opposite teams. We played our hearts out, regardless of age or ability. It was a chance for the kids to work together as teams and learn good sportsmanship, as well as an opportunity to see their teachers in a different light (gasp - we took off our neckties!).
This kind of activity is important. Especially in a time when most schools are cutting gym and recess to cram in more test-prep so that they can be in compliance with NCLB.
I'm of the opinion that if you're so concerned about bumps and scrapes that you take away a kid's balls...you should probably be more concerned about your own. They seem to have come up missing.
-
99% of the cacao beans belong to 1% of the population.
#OccupyMars
-
1
-
-
That's pretty awesome, but I don't relish the thought of the thousands of Kirk/Spock fanfics being written RIGHT NOW because of this announcement. If you listen close, you can hear all the keys tapping. And if you listen even closer, you can hear all the editors cringing.
Now if you'll excuse me, I just heard a comma splice being typed three apartments down. There's work to be done!
-
How kind, indeed!
And I suppose those having had sex with 'crack whores' are still exempt?
Only if the crack whore isn't sharing needles with a man who has had sex with a man in the last twelve months. That'd be risky.
-
Would a bottom be gayer than a top?
I think that's a zen koan.
"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
"If a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"
"If you look at two dudes having sex, which one is gayer - the bottom, the top, or you, for looking at them?"
And, yes, we have now discussed systems of measurement, the scientific method, syllable stressing, and zen koans in a thread about wangs.
You're welcome.
-
Ah, now I get it. The tape measures sent to the gay guys had the inch markings set closer together.
C
Of course! They were measuring in "Gay Inches." It's like Dog Years, only sexier.
'Course, this is scientific measurement, so they may have been in metric "Homometers."
-
While it should not be news to any of us here that our schlongs are larger than most, I do find it remarkable and unexpected the EleCivil stays abreast of issues of this sort by reading the abstracts from the US National Library of Medicine.
Thanks for that, E/C. None of the rest of us have the time for that.
C
Hahaha. This article was actually forwarded by a colleague of mine, and I figured you guys would get a kick out of it. We have sort of an unofficial "who can find the strangest research abstract in a professional journal" contest going on.
Yes, this is what science teachers do for fun.
I was amazed at the number of commentaries on this particular study that can be found on the internet. There are numerous criticisms of the factual reliability of penis size claims as disclosed by the Kinsey study. Here is a typical critique:'...the study's fatal flaw, if I may, is its reliance on self-reported data. The straight and gay men in the study were asked to measure themselves and report back to creepy Dr. Kinsey, so odds are good that many men, straight and gay, lied, telling researchers what they, the subjects of the study, wanted to believe -- i.e. that their cocks were huge. I would knock an inch off both averages just to be on the safe side, bringing the average -- average, mind you -- gay cock down to 5.46 inches, and the average straight cock down to 5.14 inches; numbers which jibe with my own observations in the field.' (Dan Savage)
Bottom line, we just have more size queens.
Haha, truth. I thought the funniest thing about this study wasn't the study itself, but the method. It seems faulty right from the start - sorting all of the subjects into a strict binary of "gay" or "straight"? Is there a way, scientifically, to prove that the men who claimed to be straight were actually straight? Did they take race/ethnicity into consideration? What about bisexuals? Etc.
But, no, the funniest thing is that they mailed tape measures to five thousand guys and said "Be honest, fellas."
-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10410197
...Just sayin'.
Thanks again, science.
Note: Shortly after this study, all the scientists involved looked at each other uncomfortably and then started shouting "I'm gay!" "Well, I'm gayer than you!" "I'm the gayest man in this room!"
-
"But...but...but...if we EDUCATE kids, they'll make the WRONG decisions! The only way to keep them safe is to make sure they're completely ignorant!"
-
Quote; "What a lovely way to care for the non compos mentis!"
[...]Without trying to insult you it seems to me that the American political field is a perfect place to gain notoriety and skewed fame without perpetrating the violent deeds that many, unfortunately, appear to prefer.
Politicians with mental disorders are not an American phenomenon. Nassir Ghaemi's book, "A First Rate Madness" is about how our most successful politicians have had some sort of mental disorder - Lincoln, Churchill, Ghandi, MLK, etc. - and how they were better leaders because of it. Depression makes one more empathetic and reflective, manic tendencies produce charismatic leaders, it takes a narcissist to stand up and say "I know a better way than everyone else," etc. People whose brains work differently are the only ones who can change the world, because everyone else keeps doing things the same way - staying the course is normal, change is "weird."
“In the storm of crisis, complete sanity can steer us astray, while some insanity brings us to port.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/books/a-...emi-review.html
Right-wingers and teabaggers strike me as being too sane for their own good. They believe in an unbending, black and white moral code. They believe that the world works in a logical way - cause and effect. The market is down? Must be because of the tax code. Murder rate is up? We'll institute the death penalty. A natural disaster wiped out a city? Somebody must have made God mad. In all honesty, that's pretty sane - "Everything happens for a reason." To believe such is to defend one's sanity against the myriad injustices of random chance.
Five minutes from now, the Earth might explode, eradicating all human life from the universe. Some people would read that sentence and think "No way, that can't be God's plan" and take comfort in it. Others would read that sentence and think "...So it goes." Which is crazier?
To me, the world is too chaotic and humans are too irrational for sanity to work. To attempt to enforce sanity on an insane universe is, in itself, rather crazy. Discordians call it The Law of Eristic Escalation: "Imposition of order = Escalation of chaos."
I'd find O'Donnell more credible if she WAS a witch.
Hail Discordia.
-
Stories that involve sheep always take place in Wales*. Or to or by a Welshman.
If it’s about sheep and doesn’t involve Wales or the Welsh it’s not a story.
This is the only thing I know about my Welsh heritage.
Dammit, ancestors.
Edit: I do think sheep are pretty awesome, though.
Scan to donate
Hugo - Martin Scorsese
in The Raccoon's Den
Posted
Hugo is based on the children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" - a great book for reluctant readers. It's a very thick-looking book, but there are pages and pages at a time that are purely illustrated, with no text. It's an interesting combination of visual storytelling and a traditional novel. Almost all of the physical descriptions are shown in (very detailed) images rather than text.
If you know some reluctant readers, this will catch their attention and instill some reading confidence. The kids I hand this one to usually carry it around for a while after they've read it, just to say "Hey, look at the size of this book I read. Yeah, I'm that awesome." (And then you can tell that they're my students, because they judge awesomeness by the size of the book in one's hand. Heh.)