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Post by nighttimer on Nov 8, 2017 7:54:01 GMT -5
I agree that mod posts should be separate from member posts. I have mixed feelings about public spankings. On the one hand, I agree that putting someone in a pillory for the entertainment of other members is bad. On the other hand, my history with private mod reprimands (not here) is exceedingly negative. I am not sure what the best solution is. Obviously, a public argument in which a mod says "Don't do that" and the member argues all the reasons why s/he didn't do that, or did do that but it was justified, and also the mod is a totally biased vindictive meany-pants, with other members then jumping in on one side or the other, is totally non-productive. On the other hand, I prefer transparency to some of the shenanigans I've seen in other forums where one or more mods was pursuing a vindictive agenda. How other forums handle their business is their business. One can learn from it and take pains to conduct business in a different and better way in order not to repeat those mistakes. Yet and still, Moderators carry their own luggage into threads at time and like everyone else, they can have favorite members and not-so-favorite members. This can lead to cliques at best and playing favorites at worst. It can also lead to heavy-handed, autocratic moderating decisions in order to squelch and suppress the voices of the Unfavored in defense of the Favored. That's something I have seen occur elsewhere and would prefer not to see repeated here. There is a way to inform a transgressing member or more than one, that enough is enough and to return to the point at hand or there will be... consequences. Once that's been said, whatever happens next, happens. It isn't necessary to say "Joe Schmoe and Jane Rain have been put in the corner without any supper." They're just not here. Whether that's the state where they remain for a few days, a few weeks, a lot of weeks or to infinity and beyond should be between the enforcers of regular order and the transgressor of regular order. Because a public spanking by a Moderator can still be in pursuit of a vindictive agenda. Hell, it's practically bragging, "I did that to X because X was pissing me off and I can do that to you too, Y & Z, if you keep pissing me off." What appears to be "transparency" can still be vindictive shenanigans when a Moderator acts out of animus and abuses their authority. Making it public makes it personal and it should not be that way. It benefits all parties concerns to be open in the warning, but discreet in the levying of sanctions. Sometimes a public hanging looks more like a lynching and instead of punishing a transgressor, you've only created a martyr.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 7, 2017 22:22:44 GMT -5
Well...if people get drunk, then the liquor is being used as intended. And when people get drunk, they can do stupid things. I, for one, would like to be able to sue Anheuser-Busch for 35 years of embarrassing moments... The booze example was a little tongue-in-cheek. Tongue-in-cheek? These were 26 human beings from ages 17 months to 77 years old slaughtered in a house of worship and you want to be flippant TWO DAYS after a massacre? If it's too early to discuss gun control then it's too early to crack wise about dead babe. A car is meant to drive, but not to drive into people as happened last week in NYC. A gun is meant to shoot, not to commit murder, mass or otherwise. The idea of allowing lawsuits seems to be an end run around the 2nd amendment. We can't take away someone's 2nd amendment, so we'll just litigate them out of existence. That's seems to be the intent behind lawsuits of that nature. And that kind of arguments make someone like me, an non gun owner who would be open to reasonable laws, non sympathetic to new gun regs. And yes, the booze is tongue in cheek, but to make the point. Many things can be used to hurt or kill, but guns are singled out where the person using the weapon isn't the sole person responsible for the use of it in an illegal way. This is such a crock of utter shit. WHY should gun manufacturers enjoy a protection NO OTHER BUSINESS IN AMERICA has? Because of the fucking 2nd Amendment or because of the fucking NRA? A gun is not meant to shoot. A gun is meant to kill. You don't use it to hammer nails or club a deer. You buy a gun because you either really enjoy target-shooting or you may want to use it to kill someone. That's ALL a gun is for. I don't give a damn about what a non-gun owner who wants to blow off the next killing spree because he thinks Colt deserves to be lawsuit-free thinks is a "reasonable law" and who needs your sympathy? If you have none for those dead kids at Sandy Hook back in 2012, why would you have any for the dead kids at Sutherland Springs. Serious questions - considering how flooded the US is with guns*, what can realistically be done outside of doing like Australia and ban guns and then have a gun amnesty collection? I can already imagine the hyperventilation on Fox News if this would ever be suggested. It's basically impossible. No new laws are going to change it, and mass-shootings will continue with the guns that are already in circulation. Isn't a new law basically doing something for the sake of appearing to do something, even if the doing has no real effect? * In 2016 there were about 330 million guns in circulation, owned by about a third of the population. I think the majority of shootings are dealing with illegal guns. There's also a culture which outlawing guns isn't going to change.
More Than 80 Percent of Guns Used in Mass Shootings Obtained LegallyBut what? Here. I'll finish your sentence. "I support the 2nd Amendment, but the 2nd Amendment doesn't mean you need an arsenal or you should be allowed to buy a gun if you're fucking nuts or you've committed violent acts against your own family like cracking your stepson's skull." Yeah, that's really extreme, Vince. it's also a crap argument. NOBODY is seriously proposing eliminating the 2nd Amendment because it isn't going to happen. What is happening is the same old, tired-ass, reactionary scare tactics rhetoric, gun defenders like you barf up, but you're do it over an ever-growing stack of bullet-riddle corpses. You know you're real quick to criticize any idea to end the shield from legal liability of gun manufacturers and even faster to say even discussing it isn't reaching anyone who isn't for a defacto ban. Which it's not. Gun manufacturers faced lawsuits all the way until 2005 and somehow they survived. Now you're all worried that an $8 billion dollar business that makes a killing out of Americans killing each other is going to fold up and blow away if they lose a special protection they never should have been given? I submit its you who is unreasonable and you who isn't interested in a more productive discussion. It's easy for you shit all over a reasonable proposal. It's impossible for you to come up with a better one.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 7, 2017 20:17:07 GMT -5
Well, the issue is (was?) PR for the NFL. They really didn't need to collude after Kaepernick left the Niners, because of the negative attention he was bringing. While Kaepernick was no criminal or the like, any team who signed him risked pissing off a lot of fans and advertisers. If there's a case of collusion to be made here, I think it would have to be some sort of memo that came from the NFL, discouraging teams from signing Kaepernick, that resulted in some inter-team correspondence. Seems unlikely to me. And as I think I've already said, it seems to me that there's no down side to signing Kaepernick now, depending on what he's willing to accept. It could be that there's collusion now, while there wasn't before. There was collusion before and there's collusion now. You know what really pisses off a lot of fans and advertisers? Lousy football. The kind of lousy football where a starting quarterback goes out and his backup runs out of the field and stinks up the joint. The way Tom Savage did in Houston before the coach saw he sucked dead donkey dicks and benched his ass after ONE QUARTER in the first game and that's where Savage stayed until rookie stud Deshaun Watson ripped up an ACL on a non-contact play during practice and in when Savage back in the line-up only to see Savage still sucks dead donkey dicks. The same thing is playing out in Green Bay where Aaron Rodgers is gone and his backup has been turrible. Or in Cleveland where they're playing ring-a-round-a scrub QB (and haven't won a game) or in San Francisco, where they got rid of Kaepernick and brought in three replacements and two of them are already gone and they haven't won a game either. How do you think dogshit teams like those two are doing without Colin Kaepernick? Better or worse? Negative attention has never stopped a NFL owner from signing a player who brought plenty. Jerry Jones had no problem signing a woman-beating shitbag like Greg Hardy calling him one of the "real leaders" of the Cowboys. This was after Hardy had gone on a sideline tirade and knocked a clipboard out of the hands of an assistant coach. Negative attention didn't deter Mike Brown from drafting Joe "I Be Breakin' Bitches Jaws" Mixon for the Bengals. Negative attention hasn't stopped the NFL from reinstating WR Josh Gordon to Browns despite his admission he played every game in his career after sparking up a blunt or slamming down a few shots of alcohol. Negative attention? In the NFL? Sheeeeeeeeeeit.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 6, 2017 21:58:27 GMT -5
THAT is why it's not too soon to talk about this, "low class" though it may be. The best time to talk about it is BEFORE THE NEXT ONE HAPPENS. I'd submit we should have a conversation about gun regulation, but not right after something like this as if this triggered it (No pun intended) where we're trying to say, if we only had this regulation, this would not have happened. Well, until we know what happened, how a new law would affect. Fine. How about THIS one?If there's a good reason why firearm makers should enjoy a protection denied to automobile manufacturers or drug companies, I'd like to know what it is.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 6, 2017 9:37:50 GMT -5
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 6, 2017 0:20:57 GMT -5
Low class Poet. The bodies are still warm If history is any indication, by the time they're cold no one will give a fuck, let alone thoughts and prayers. This tendency to say "it's too soon" has become a ploy to stifle discussion for the sake of some perceived respect for the dead. It's a silencing tactic and its absurd. We ain't respecting the dead by refusing to talk about these rampages. We're being COWARDS and I won't have anything to do with it. I don't care who doesn't like it and I don't care who's annoyed or upset by it. "Thoughts and prayers" have become a metaphor for cowardly, impotent, politicians to hide behind instead of saying, "We could do something about this carnage, but we owe our asses to the NRA, so we will do nothing. Real sorry about your loss." Fuck empty thoughts and fuck empty prayers. God didn't create this mess and God's not going to clean it up. WE did and WE have to clean it up. Now. Before the next massacre and the next airdrop of useless thoughts and prayers
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 5, 2017 18:52:41 GMT -5
Name the killer. Count the bodies. Bury them and forget them. Send out meaningless thoughts and prayers. Then do the same thing as every other time this happens. Not a goddamn thing.
Not even when the next killer of innocents in mass numbers goes off and walks into a church or a school or a mall or a concert or anywhere else which can be turned into a kill zone.
See you soon.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 5, 2017 18:38:10 GMT -5
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 5, 2017 11:47:08 GMT -5
Taking that aside and assuming there was a smaller turnout -- the parade started four hours after the attack, a few blocks away from it. You don't find anything cool and, like, resilient, about the fact it went forward and that lots of people turned out? I do find it admirable, for the record. It's just that, as per my first post in this thread, I don't find it different as per your contention that people living in New York are somehow special in this regard. I also don't imagine that every person who lives in New York feels exactly the same as those who showed up at the Halloween festival four hours after the attack. It doesn't make sense to me that simply because a person is a resident of New York, they're somehow categorically different than other Americans, or human beings, who have experienced terror attacks. Case in point, those who showed up in Vegas after the attack, those who showed up in Orlando after the attack. And then there's London. Paris. Etc. Pretty much this. A tragedy is a tragedy no matter where it is, no matter how large or small the body count is or how resolute the citizens are in in their response. You can't walk into a dance club in Orlando or Paris without instinctively looking for the nearest exit. Just in case. Or if you're strolling at a Christmas market in Berlin and a truck rumbles by without being at least wary about it. Or if you're walking through Times Square and wondering if that guy walking by all bundled up on a warm day is susceptible to catching cold easily or has a suicide vest he's waiting to trigger where the crowd is thickest and most likely to be most devastated. New York City is a target for terrorists. It's their Super Bowl, World Series and Nobel Nutcase Prize all rolled into one. Nobody doubts that. Nobody doubts many New Yorkers handle it by not by quaking and quivering in their designer boots, but by being wary of strange behavior and being aware of the oddity amidst the normal. This is not about being macho and telling the terrorists to fuck away off. They don't give a fuck about New Yorkers not giving a fuck. They're still gonna come here and they're still gonna try to take as many of you out as they can. This time they got a lot of tourists. Poor bastards like me and my wife are tourists here. We're going back home soon enough and leave with a bag full of swag and lots of good memories. This is our longest time spent here and we've had Big Fun. Not everything was great, but nothing has been so bad I'd never consider going back. New Yorkers have a right to be proud of where they live. It's a big, bad town and if you can't find it here, you probably don't need it anyway. I've always said you can have more fun in NYC with $100 than you can with $10,000 in most cities. Last night, I shared a Lyft to the Lower East Side with two young ladies, one of who was rocking a Cat in the Hat outfit (complete with hat) who asked the driver if she could play the music on the ride through her iPhone. I was expecting some pop or EDM from her playlist. Wrong. She started out with "Come As You Are" by Nirvana and switched over to new country complete with all the beer, pickup trucks and other cliches you can handle. Only in New York. But that didn't help those poor eight dead folks. Or those injured last Tuesday who will go through life missing limbs, facing years of painful recovery and scarred in ways we will never know because we're going to forget all about them soon enough. New York Strong like Boston Strong or Orlando Strong or Paris Strong or London Strong or Las Vegas Strong is great for morale, but it won't keep you safe when the monsters come out.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 4, 2017 10:10:59 GMT -5
Kapernick's Kollusion Kase Kontinues...It's still an uphill climb for Kaepernick as he's shooting a water gun at a entity in the NFL and its owners which have unlimited resources to throw at him. Still, its not an impossible climb as the recent season ending injury to rookie star QB Deshaun Watson indicates and two scrubs off the street were signed by the Houston Texans. The same Houston Texans owned by Bob "can't have the inmates running the prison" McNair. Looks like collusion. Smells like collusion. Is it collusion? Ehhhh...could be, rabbit.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 4, 2017 10:00:05 GMT -5
But quite frankly, I'm unclear on why either one of you would be dead set on proving that people in my city are cowering in their homes, except to get in my face. Seriously, I don't. You don't or you won't? The first person to introduce the word "cowering" in this thread was you on October 31 at 11:47 pm or don't you read your own posts? You want to spin it as Christine or I made this about people cowering in their homes to get in your face? Two words: PROVE IT. Because if you're taking offense on a debate board someone has the audacity to have a different opinion than you I can't help you with that. That's the second thing you've said I am in complete agreement with. The first was the admission you don't speak for all New Yorkers. Thanks. We are enjoying New York very much without you.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 4, 2017 9:44:08 GMT -5
I don't think Cass was saying she was speaking for all NYer's but rather herself and her general sense of what other's around her feel. Go back and read her posts. That's not what she is saying at all. My point, as I've said more than once, is pretty much exactly the opposite. Maybe if you actually listened instead of attacking and ranting, posters wouldn't have to repeat themselves. "Attacking and ranting?" Now that's a good one. You'd know something about attacking and ranting at posters, wouldn't you? I defer to your vastly superior experience on how to lose your shit. I'd listen if you had something to say that wasn't delivered dripping in derision and condescension. It's pretty haughty that you are trying to school me on attitudes about terrorism in New York as if the rest of the country spent the day watching cartoons and scratching in inappropriate places waiting for the "New Yorkers" to tell us what it was really like. I'm going to hazard a guess and say you weren't in the World Trade Center that day and you didn't hop on your bike and try to pedal away from a choking cloud of smoke, debris and falling building and you probably didn't rush to the nearest hospital to donate blood for the survivors that didn't come. I'm going to hazard a guess and say you probably got through 9/11 the way most of America did. Glued to a television and recoiling in horror. That was probably a wrong guess, but then again, I wasn't there at the WTC on September 11, 2001 to know for sure. But then, neither were you. When Los Angeles erupted in bloody rioting after the Rodney King/LAPD verdict none of us here were there, but all of us probably had an opinion about it. When New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, none of us were there treading through black water and trying to survive, but all of us probably had an opinion about it. When terrorists took control of two planes and sent them careening into the Twin Towers, none of us were in the planes, in the buildings or on the ground, but all of us probably had an opinion about it. But now only your opinion counts about NYC in the wake of 9/11? That's not adorable at all. Yeah. That, and my wife's understandable apprehension means a lot more to me than your condescension. It would be one thing if you had said, "Sorry to hear that, but tell her people are going about their daily lives with open eyes and a calm resolve and the police are stepping up their presence to avoid further acts of terror." But you didn't do that did you? You jumped in with your feelings on your sleeve in response to my comment to Vince with a nasty, " New Yorkers don't have time to cower and freak out." Us vs. Them, huh? Well, I'm so happy for you and your Halloween party and your bike path and what everyone you know is saying, but everyone YOU know ain't anyone I know, so understand if I don't take what you say as the gospel truth and last word on the subject. However, I do appreciate you finally admitting you can't speak for every human living in New York. That falls under the category of "Knew That Already." Your failure to grasp my point does not mean there is no point. I can assure you it is not, "YOU'RE WRONG, CASSANDRA!" If I were saying, "YOU'RE RIGHT, CASSANDRA!" you would have no problem grasping the point. But to agree with you would only mean we'd both be wrong. We (meaning all of us at TCG and everyone in the country) could all potentially be victims of a terrorist attack. Probably none of us will be. The one thing I claim for New Yorkers is not so much outstanding bravery but rather a certain resignation to the inevitably of attacks, both because of 9/11 and because the attractiveness of our city as a target. But hey, on the attitudes of New Yorkers and how they are thinking and feeling, or the effect of having witnessed a major terrorist attack and lived through its effects on your city, hey, I give -- you and nighttimer have your finger on that pulse way more than I do. And clearly, you also have a clearer sense of what it was like here on Halloween night than I do. I can't say I do because I wasn't, but then I never said I did. And Christine and I never claimed to have our finger on the pulse more than you do. That's your claim because you personalized the debate and insisted on sharing your bona fides when nobody called them into question in the first place. If there's an axe to be ground here, you're the one doing it, Cassandra.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 3, 2017 17:47:52 GMT -5
Henceforth, there will not be a post where you purport to speak for the experiences, the feelings, or the desires of Black people other than yourself as an individual where I shall fail to point it out. Though I fear it will get very repetitive for the rest of the forum. As repetitive as you telling everyone you live in NYC? As repetitive as you boasting how you speak for all New Yorkers? Newsflash: It's already very repetitive. Of course there's a very simple way to ameliorate your fears about me purporting to speak for the experiences, the feelings or the desires of Black people other then myself. Invite more Black people to join the board. Problem solved. A hasty generalization is a general statement without sufficient evidence to support it and you have provided none beyond your own personal perspective and limited experiences. What happened Tuesday could easily happen again or is it your contention it could not? What is obvious to "everyone" in the thread (everyone being the four other participants) isn't necessarily obvious to everyone.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 3, 2017 15:41:08 GMT -5
I am qualified, as one who was out and about in New York the afternoon and night after the attack and in the days thereafter, hanging out with fellow New Yorkers, etc., to observe that New York didn't slow its roll one bit. The parade was as huge and as festive as ever. The subways were as crowded as always. People were talking Halloween, not the attack. I don't know anyone in New York who is changing their life one notch, even temporarily, because of this attack. In fact, the crowd I run with is griping about the concrete barriers they are putting on the bike path, which are a serious pain in the ass to bike around. If anything, I feel like an attack is somewhat LESS likely than usual right now, simply because the police presence is ramped up. That seems to be the general feeling, from my discussions with fellow New Yorkers. What number constitutes "the general feeling" of your fellow New Yorker? One? A half-dozen? A few hundred? Half-a-million? Frankly, I'm somewhat skeptical the general feeling of your fellow New Yorkers runs beyond however large or small the numbers of the crowd you run with. Good. You do that. Alas, the Sadness of First World Problems.
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Post by nighttimer on Nov 3, 2017 9:49:05 GMT -5
Seems to me you spend a whole lot of time here informing the rest of us how Black people feel. I am equally qualified to speak as a New Yorker. The difference is I'm only expressing how one Black person feels. I'm not qualified to attempt to speak for 37 million Black people. So you live in New York. Congratulations. What's that make you? Some sort of expert or something? The driver from LaGuardia lives in New York too and know the city's streets and locations so well he scoffs at GPS. How 'bout you? An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form: Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S. Person A makes claim C about subject S. Therefore, C is true.You're imminently qualified to speak as a New Yorker. You're imminently unqualified to speak for all New Yorkers. Not every New Yorker shares your "stiff upper lip" philosophy of intestinal fortitude. Taking reasonable precautions isn't "cowering" as much as its good common sense. If Cuomo, DeBlasio, the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies were to simply say, "Well, at least it wasn't as bad as 9/11" and go back to business as usual, they would look like fools because quiet as its kept there are New Yorkers who would very much like to hurt and kill and terrorize other New Yorkers.
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