September 16, 2006

There's GOLD ...

in them thar hills!!!

Yeah, that's right ... I'm going to make a ton of easy money in the not so distant future. How, you ask? Because some random artist from the U.K. has decided to trust little ole ME! I'm so excited. Why does Susan Wrights trust me? Well, because she "followed my antecedent from the internet" and then "decided on [me] because [her] confidence reposed on [me] as someone that is responsible and reliable." ME!!! Little ole me is responsible and reliable and that's so obvious from my antecedent on the internet!

Apparently poor Sussan-the-artist has discovered a gold mine of people to fleece in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA who are just so excited to have her artwork that they are sending her TRAVELER'S CHECK or MONEY ORDER or CASHIER'S CHECK as payment. Unfortunately, Susan Wrights has not found a bank in UNITED KINGDOM with tellers whose fingers aren't so far up their own arses that they can be arsed to figure out how to convert and cash such esoteric transactions as these.

That's where I come in! She's gonna send me these payments and I will cash them for her, save 10% for myself and use Western Union to transfer the rest back to her. Easy money! I get paid for just cashing her checks!

I'm a little hurt, though. She also had to go and call the FBI and the Secret Service and they've assured her that if I take too much money, they'll track me down and punish me. I thought she said she trusted me? Oh well, I guess you just can't be too sure about these people you meet over the internet and I should just be glad that she's entrusting me with her money at all.

Boy, if she sells enough paintings to Americans, I'll be able to quit my day job and make cashing checks my full-time job. Sure, there's no health insurance or other benefits ... but maybe if I show her how trustworthy I am she'll let me set up a store for her stuff here in the UNITED STATES and I can just spread the word about the wonderful Susan Wrights and sell more ... wait ... was that Sussan Wrights or Susan Wrights. Oh, and wright here it says Susan Harrison-Tustain. But Harrison-Tustain is a New Zealand watercolourist. Susan Wrights is in London (United Kingdom, in case you had any doubts). And Susan Wrights does work in pencil or "art brush mixed with color pencils."

WAIT ... she wrote "COLOR" ... not "COLOUR." Everyone knows those crazy brits add an extra U here there and everywhere. What's going on here? What's with this? Is it real? Is it memorex? Is it a recycled Nigerian money-laundering scheme?

Damn ... I thought I was gonna be rich.

Read the whole thing below:

Welcome to The Art of Susan Harrison-Tustain
OFFICE
304, Parliament Street,
York, YO18SG, UK

Email: sussanwrights@yahoo.co.uk
Date:22 june,2006.
Greetings to you,
My name is Susan Wrights . I am an artist, practicing with my husband Mr.Fred Wrights, here in the United Kingdom. We own the SUSAN ART WORK INC., here in London, (United Kingdom). I live in London United Kingdom, with my two kids, two cats, one pet dog and the love of my life, my husband, Mr. Fred Wrights. It is undeniably a full house that we keep. I have been doing my artwork since I was a small child, which makes it about 23 years of experience for me in the field. I majored in fine and creative art in high school and in the college I professionalised in the art courses in the advance levels. Most of my works are done in either pencil or art brush mixed with color pencils.

I have recently added designing and creative artwork on the computer, and I have been selling my art works for the past 3 years to my prestigious customers from all over the world. Also, I have had my work featured on trading cards, prints and magazines, I have sold in galleries and to private collectors from all over the world, but I am always facing serious difficulties when it comes to selling my art works to Americans. I have bigger customers from the Americans but most of my America customer’s mostly offer to pay me with TRAVELER’S CHECK or MONEY ORDER or CASHIER'S CHECK, which is difficult for me to redeem into its cash equivalence here in London, United Kingdom.

My main reason for sending you this email is that I am looking for a representative in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I am looking for someone who will be working for me, and with me, as a par time worker and I will be willing to pay 10% for every transaction the person assists me in making. Following your antecedent from the Internet, I decided that you should assist me in handling this situation. I decided upon you because my confidence reposed on you as someone that is responsible and reliable. Presently, I am working on setting up a branch in the states so, for now, I need a representative in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA who will be handling the payment aspect for our company. The work you would be doing for me would not have to affect your present business or work. The work I would like you to do for me is simply to receive from me the TRAVELER’S CHECK or MONEY ORDER or CASHIER’S CHECK that my customers are paying me with. Because the cost of coming to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA constantly to redeem this payments is becoming too expensive, time-consuming and inconvenient for me. When you receive the check payments from our customers or my secretary through the postal service, I would like you to cash the checks for me as soon as you receive them. So when you cash the check, I would like you to subtract your 10% and the transfer charges and send the balance to my cashier in the United Kingdom through Western Union Money Transfer.

However, the problem I have is trust. And as a result of that, I have made arrangements with the FBI in Washington and the secret service agents that if anybody representing me gets away with my money they have assured me that they will definitely get hold track the person down, and the person will go to jail for looting my funds. PAYMENT WOULD BE SENT TO YOU THROUGH A TRUSTED POSTAL SERVICE AGENT. AND AS SOON AS YOU RECEIVE THEM I WOULD LIKE YOU TO IMMEDIATELY CONTACT ME, SO THAT I WOULD DIRECT YOU ON WHAT TO DO WITH IT AND HOW TO GET THE BALANCE TRANSFERRED TO MY CASHIER IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

NOTE: All charges of the WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER will be deducted from my total sum, so you are rest assured that you wouldn’t spend a CENT out of your own personal money. You just have to deduct your interest and send the balance to my cashier for accounting and bookkeeping.
If you are interested in assisting me in this venture pending when our branch would be ready in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA for us to work closely together, please kindly get back to me immediately via this my mailbox.

P.S, Please send to me the listed information below:
1. Your Name in Full
2. Your Full Contact Address
3. Your Occupation
4. Your Age
5. Your Marital Status
6. Your Direct Phone Number and Fax Number
I eagerly await your prompt response,I appreciate your fervent dedication and your decision to assist me.
Pls all response should be sent to my private email : sussanwrights@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks for your assistant and God bless,

Thanks for your assistance and God bless you for your anticipated dedication,

Director of SUS ART WORK INC,
London, United Kingdom.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:42 AM | Comments (7) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

August 9, 2006

Not News

Once Upon A Time in the world, there was this little chunk of land known as Michigan. And Not So Very Long Ago, there was a smaller chunk of land within the confines of Michigan known as:
Rainbow Farms.

But tale of idiocy I tell today really only touches tangentially on Rainbow Farms ... you can read more about the farm and their standoff with local law enforcement, the FBI and their 420 festival here and here.

No, what I have to discuss today is our local news. It sucks. Wait, wait, this all ties together in a minute. Be patient, trust me. But our news does suck. Really really really suck.

You see, about the time the standoff at Rainbow Farm commenced, WNDU, NBC local affiliate, channel 16, owned at one time by the University of Notre Dame, bought a news helicopter. While owned by Notre Dame, channel 16 was well-known for purchasing new tech and new gadgets so they could be the best of the best (in a really small local market ... whoopee). So, they painted their lovely new helicopter a deep colour of blue, a bit on the dark side and happily flew around from town to town reporting on as many of the local high school footballs games they could manage on a Friday night.

Wait, I mean they reported news. And traffic stuff. Yeah, that's what they did.

But mostly they flew to high school football games in their nifty new chopper.

Enter the conflict at Rainbow Farms. As I said, this story isn't about Rainbow Farms, but what you do need to know is that the guys who owned the farm had pretty much had it with the local cops. They were getting paranoid about the cops, and my very brief understanding of the conflict suggests that they had reason to be concerned. So, there's this kind of low-key standoff between the local cops and the dudes at the farm ... and the geniuses at channel 16 decide ... hey, we have a news chopper, let's go report The Big News ™. And off they flew.

Let's see, it's dusk. It's a dark colour helicopter. It's a standoff with the cops. It's guys who're suspicious (rightly so by this point).

Yeah, I certainly think it's safe to do a low fly-by right over the frigging armed suspicious dudes, sure. Why not? What's the worst that could happen? I mean, this is the NEWS and we gotta deliver the news, right?

Yeah. You know what happened next. I know what happened next. (Well, I'm writing this, so I damn well better know what happened next, but you know what I mean.)

One of the dudes mistook (cue groovy announcer voice) NewsChopper 16™ (end groovy announcer) for a military or police black helicopter and took a shot. Duh.

Now, I would not want to have been the pilot or the passenger on that chopper. I'm damn glad no one was actually hurt. But good lord, how stupid could they have been?

The focus of the channel 16 news that night?

"WE GOT SHOT, WE GOT SHOT, WE GOTTED SHOT, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SOMEONE SHOT AT OUR BRAND-NEW HAPPY NEWSCHOPPER, CUZ WE CAN'T BELIEVE IT, BUT IT'S TRUE, WE GOT SHOT AT!"

Dear lord. I am not kidding you. Out of their what, 22 minute newscast at 10, I think 20 minutes was spent discussing the tiny hole in their freaking helicopter. A more reasonable actual news account of the story is on their website here.

It was like a car wreck of a newscast that evening, I tell you. I couldn't look away. I could not believe they were continually talking about the fact that they had a small bullet hole in the rear stabilzer. "They were all okay," they hastened to add, "but it was scary." Really? No shit. You flew down low over a tense, armed standoff and got shot at and it was SCARY? I had no idea. Thank you for that bit of news.

That was the first five minutes of the newscast. Then next 15 minutes consisted of a running commentary about how bad this was ... they'd been SHOT at, didn't you understand? and then ... then ... THEN ... they trotted a camera crew out to the helicopter pad. At first, when it was still a tad bit light ... the helicopter wasn't back yet. So, they showed us footage of the empty helicopter pad ... and discussed that they had been SHOT at, do you BELIEVE this shit? SHOT AT. Them!

Finally, the chopper arrives. It is now full dark. During the commercial break, they frantically get a camera crew back out to the helicopter pad and attempt to light it up and somehow avoid washing everything out all at the same time. Quite a trick what with the bright lights bouncing on the bright, shiny-new chopper.

They spent another five minutes after the break showing us the little bullet hole and the ragged bits of the fiberglass where it had gone through. And then assuring us, that "No one was hurt, but it was scary."

Now, look. Local team, big news story. They got excited. They had a new toy. I understand that they wanted to show that toy off and get to use it. But good freaking lord, could they show a little common sense and not do a low fly-by? And why were they surprised that they were shot at? I mean, a really good investigative reporter does understand that there is danger involved in the job on a regular basis.

But in the larger scheme of reporting the news, the fact that they had a bullet hole in their rear stabilizer truly was not a 15 minute news story. A sentence or two as they discussed the story of the standoff - fine. Yeah, it should be mentioned if for no other reason than to warn the public to stay away from the standoff. (Unlike the fine idiots who took picnic lunches to Waco on the weekends for the Branch Davidian mess.)

But the fact that they were not shot down is not a news story!

*sigh* Heinlein's quote seems particularly appropriate when applied to the local news:
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

It boggles the mind, it does.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:12 AM | Comments (1) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

July 23, 2006

Well Said

I found { decadently } while surfing Blogmad and I have to say, I'm really glad I did. There is such a thing as taking an argument out of context and taking it far too far and Marie said all this far better and more bluntly than I ever could.

Check out Open Letter #246234. Well said, indeed!

Oh, and while I was on vacation, the anti-discrimination ordinance missed passing by a single vote. Apparently the mayor is furious. I'm afraid to go to the nospecialrights.net site and see how they gloated. *sigh*

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:32 PM | Comments (1) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

July 20, 2006

Why Not to Be in a Hurry

Yesterday, I very very hurriedly tried to get some edits done on a piece at work. I only had the printed copy and no digital copy to work from, so I had to re-type the short piece and edit as I went. Then, I handed it off to the graphic designer to put into the brochure format with the hopes that we would both still work on some of it in the morning.

I am really REALLY hoping that he didn't send it out yet. Cuz, umm ... well .... there's this nasty little typo ... umm:

This means that you can make monkey from people who love this.

Ooops. Guess I have monkeys on the brain or something. Or maybe it was the 3.5 hours of sleep before coming in to work a full day after being gone for something like 11 days. Or maybe it was the shock of being back in Indiana after being in my beloved Texas.

Yeah. Anyhow ... I really hope that hasn't gone out yet. (Or if it has, that he actually saw the typo, laughed hysterically at me and changed monkey to money.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:10 AM | Comments (4) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

June 24, 2006

In the Ghetto

For regular watchers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, you know where I got today's title and subject matter. (Meanwhile, check out the Player Haters video from The Daily Show link ... it'll get your blood a-boiling.)

Video games, apparently, are something the U.S. Congress does not comprehend. I suppose this must be much like once books were commonly available. All them old folks simply don't get this new-fangled dissemination of ideas, concepts and freedom of thought. Especially not when those li'l whippersnappers get hold a them idears.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, riles me faster than "adults" dodging responsibility. I will attempt to curb my language in this post, but I make no promises. There may very well be strong language which reflects my intensely strong feelings on this issue.

I don't care if we're talking about Dungeons & Dragons, the swimming hole at the quarry, the Hardy Boys books, My Little Pony, cartoons, video games or the freaking rocks in the "empty" field. Kids find stuff to get into that we wish they didn't do. The fact of the matter is, they are tiresomely independent and creative in finding ways to amuse themselves that we attempt to keep from them.

Now, the catch-22 is that we can watch almost their every move if we are willing to give up a two parent career/jobs ... providing you're not a single parent already. Of course, giving up two incomes probably means you can't give your children all the opportunities you'd like to give them. For some families, that might be food and clothing. For others it might be a junker to re-build together. Your mileage, of course, may vary. There will still be times that we can't be with our kids, but we can at least hover over them most of the time. (Providing they don't sneak out of this smothering closeness at night. Of course, I suppose you could put an alarm system on the kid's room and get around that, too.) But you can utterly stifle them and watch them most of the time.

Or, you can raise them as best you can, talk with them, instill your values in them, and then do the hardest thing in the world for any good parent: trust them enough to let them make their own choices (within certain parameters, of course).

Then again, the third option is to ignore the crap outa them and let everyone else raise them haphazardly, as they see fit. Sadly, this seems to be the preferred method for far too many American families.

But what got me on this topic to begin with? Let's listen to a minute long MP3 clip from "Player Haters" on The Daily Show.
The U.S. House of Representatives apparently feels the need to discuss video games and their violent tendencies more than say, violence in Iraq. Because they can do something about video game violence. In this clip, they are discussing, of course, Grand Theft Auto.
(PC IE users, you may need to download and play from your favourite MP3 application, FireFox users should be able to hear this play in browser.)
Player Haters Clip (Opens in new window so you can read this post and listen at the same time :) .)

"It's safe to say that a wealthy kid from suburbs can play Grand Theft Auto or similar games without turning to a life of crime. But a poor kid who lives in a neighborhood where people really do steal cars or deal drugs or shoot cops, might not be so fortunate."

REALLY? OMFG, HE SAID THIS ALOUD AND ON THE RECORD?????

Let's dissect this, shall we?

A wealthy kid ... a poor kid ... the poor kid "might not be so fortunate." Gee, ya think? And only people in poor neighborhoods steal cars, deal drugs and shoot cops? C'mon here! Could this dude spurt more stereotypes?

"There's almost certainly a child somewhere in America who's going to be hurt by this game. Maybe his dad's in jail or his big brother's already down on the corner dealing drugs."

All right, now wait a minute here. I mean, Jon Stewart nails one of the issues by pointing out that the "Columbine boys" were NOT poor little inner city "chilluns." But there's so much more here. Where's the personal responsibility of the parents? Oh wait, I forgot. We're assuming all these "unfortunates" have a dad already in jail, mom is presumably working or waiting in the welfare line and big brother is selling drugs on the street corner. (Double meaning to the last is intentional.) Second, boy, dad and brother. Wait a minute. Mr. Joseph Pitts ("Mmmm, unfortunate name.") from Pennsylvania seems to think that the females are not going to be affected by the game ... or that it might be Mom in jail instead of Dad.

Leaving the issue of male/female aside - this was, after all, just a 3 sentence clip - I just gotta say WTF. I mean what the bloody freaking hell?

Now look, I don't want my 5 year old playing Grand Theft Auto. Let's just be clear about that. Nor do I think I really want my 10 year old playing it. At least from what I've heard about it. But let's do a little freaking proactive parenting here, huh? Video games tend to run about $50 while they're brand new. What ten year old has $50 that they can just run over to Target and spend at will? We start getting much older than that, and I suppose by 13 it might be possible. (We're gonna get to the "but what about their friends' homes" whine in just a minute.)

13 year old wants to play a video game. It's marked M for mature. Okay. Kid really wants to play it and "everyone" in his class already owns it. Go down to the local gaming and video store and rent the damn thing. Don't tell Junior, just do it. After he goes to bed at night, play the game. Are you gonna get all the easter eggs? No, not really, but you will have a good idea if you really want your kid playing the damn game or not. Okay, let's say I've got a 13 year old who is utterly car mad and impulsive. Umm, I'm thinking NO to Grand Theft Auto. Pretty emphatically. She argues that she's not gonna "do anything," she just wants to play the game and I'm mean to her.

Tough. Okay, kid, prove to me that you are mature enough to play the game. Let's set some goals and ground rules surrounding the impulsivity issues. If Impulse-child can meet those goals in six months, I'll re-consider.

Now the deal is, this only works if 1) you know your kid and talk to the kid 2) the kid knows that "re-consider" means re-consider and it doesn't mean an automatic hell no. It can't be a delaying tactic just to shut the kid up. 3) it means you have to be willing to do some research and stay involved.

Is any of this easy? Yes and no. It's time consuming, and at the end of the day, many of us are simply too tired and too caught up in our own lives to invest enough into creative parenting. But the fact of the matter is this: kids are far more appreciative of being treated like thinking beings than they are of having the latest stuff. Sure, most of them want both. :) But those kids who are treated like thinking beings will grow to understand why they can't always have the stuff. And they'll learn to cope with that and enjoy their relationship with their parent(s).

The fact of the matter is, Dungeons and Dragons is not evil. Video games are not evil. Rocks in the field are not evil.

Children who are so isolated from right and wrong that a rock war in the field sounds like a stunning idea, never mind that three kids had to have stitches ... that's something to be concerned about.

Suburban ... white suburban boys who are angry at the world and in anger management therapy and yet still have access to guns and terrorize a "nice suburban" school ... that's something to be terrified about.

Is it the parents' fault when their kids do terrible things? That's a very knotty question that depends on the total situation and another post another time. Please understand I am NOT knee-jerk reacting and saying that bad behaviour of children is automatically the fault of the parent for not paying attention.

But when we're talking about things like video games, we have choices. More choices than many of us seem to think.

For example, a good friend of mine at work is very religious. Not in the in-your-face, hey, I'm RELIGIOUS kind of way. He's very quiet about it ... very much tries to live a simple and devout life. Doesn't feel the need to convert everyone around him. We were talking about the Lego Star Wars video game one day. His kids just adored the game and had great fun with it. After all, when you swing the light saber at something, it just breaks into its little Lego blocks. No blood, no gore. Didn't really seem like a violent game. If I remember correctly, the littlest boy is something of a pistol at five or so. What "Jonathan" noticed was that the kids got very wound up after playing the game. He told the kids he was going to take it away for a week after they'd had a particularly rambunctious day. Over the course of that week, they're behaviours calmed down. Once they had the video game again, they went back to Nutsville.

They don't get even that E for Everyone game anymore because with six kids in the house, they simply wound each other up too much. Does that mean the Lego Star Wars video game is bad for all kids? Not at all. In Jonathan's situation it was. Perhaps if the littlest of the kids had been a bit older, they'd have been mature enough to reign in their excitement. Perhaps not. It really depends on the kids and their personalities.

What I'm saying here in this long post which has now taken me two days to write is this:
You have to be willing to observe your kids. You have to be willing to say no. You have to be willing to do the research. You have to be willing to find the time to do all of this.

We don't get it right every time. We can't. We're only human.

But we can't blame a game, or a book or a CD for our children's behaviours. It's so very much more complicated than that.

And back to Mr. Joseph Pitts for a moment. It's absolutely reprehensible to assume that the rich suburban kids will have no problems with the more "dangerous" games like Grand Theft Auto while the poor inner-city youth will automatically succumb to the situation at hand. Absolutely reprehensible. And, to my mind, the fact that this @sshole planned out this statement just makes it all the more reprehensible. He's looking for a scapegoat that will garner him votes. He's looking to soothe busy parents' minds by telling them it's definitely not their fault, they can blame these modern times and gizmos. I find that irresponsible and ridiculous.

Argh. I forgot to get back to the "but what about their friends' houses" whine. Another time, another time.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:16 AM | Comments (0) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble

June 17, 2006

Silent Reverie

If you've read much of this blog before, you know that I frequently claim to have been an odd child. Maybe I should make that one of the categories here, as it seems like an almost ritualistic start to many of my posts.

At any rate, I was an odd little kid. At seven, I was positive that I had the whole world figured out. The point of life was quite obviously to be an adult. This was the mecca of achievements. After all, grown-ups were always telling us to act more mature. And, the definition of a grown-up was to be objective, impartial and to have no emotional extremes whatsoever. Getting angry or hurt or mad or too sad, all of that was childish. And even at seven, I strove to be as adult and grown-up as I possibly could.

To go along with this concept, I assumed that as my friends and I aged, we would become more "adult," more objective, more impartial, less given to petty fights over nothing at all.

As I grew older and realized that most chronological adults are anything but objective and impartial and who are still quite emotional and sometimes petty, I grew terribly confused. Why couldn't all the adults see that my vision of how life should be was the right one? They obviously weren't trying enough.

Like I said, I was an odd child.

Okay, seemingly big jump here, but I'll tie it all together in a minute, hang on.

I've been online in one capacity and frequency or another since the kid across the street got a modem for his Commodore 64. He'd labouriously log into his BBS and we'd type to some other kid. The modem transmitted one slow letter at a time. And oh, but God forbid you make a typo ... then you would watch the cursor back up, eating one letter at a time until the other dude got to the mistake and then labouriously re-typed the real word. And trust me, on the C-64, you had to whale on those keys with your fingers to get each letter to take. There was none of this soft-touch keyboard action. You might as well have been on an old Royal typewriter and you'd better have some damn strong fingers if you wanted to touch-type instead of hunt and peck.

Now I am both a very visual person and a very words-oriented person. The two traits together have helped me learn to read people's words, body language and mannerisms fairly well. (Okay, so being the child of an alcoholic honed that skill more than anything else could have, but you get the point.) And what I noticed about the early BBS was that it was far easier to get into a misunderstanding there than in person. In fact, the limited typing skills, the speed of the modems, and the programming of the systems pretty much generated disagreements like Orville Reddenbacher generated popcorn.

When I got back online in 1993 and joined MUDdog, the landscape of being online had changed drastically. While there's still the "lag kills" issue to be faced, the 'net was far more of a "real-time" community than it had been. But the miscommunications and fights seemed to be just as bad, if not worse, than before. And because I both love figuring things out and because I'm a writer, I tried to do what I do best: sit back and observe and then draw conclusions. (And then share them ... gee, aren't you lucky?)

The fact of the matter is that on the computer screen, everything is flat as hell. It's a one-dimensional, flat as a pancake, exercise in frustrating interpretation. The fact of the matter is that most of us are completely used to relying on another person's vocal tone or body language to give hints as to whether someone is laughing at us or with us. As a writing teacher, I saw this over and over and over again. Our little black marks on the page are one of the best ways we have to communicate our ideas to a wide audience ... and they are also simply the dead skeleton left behind by the ideas we convey as we speak. They're better than nothing, but they're not the whole Stegasorous.

And what really sucks about this is that so many of us feel that "plain speech" will "clear the air" and is the best way to avoid being misunderstood and to still be true to our own selves and our own feelings.

Unfortunately, this simply is not true most of the time. Plain speech, more often than not, leads to people taking offense. And we can say all we want, "I didn't mean it that way" or "I should be able to say what I mean" ... but the deal is ... language, any language, every language, does not have fixed meaning.

An example: I hate the word lesbian. It drives me up the frigging wall. Yet, most people who are trying conscientiously to use the "right" word for a gay female will use lesbian. To me, it sounds like a frigging disease. See, when I was in high school, and a newscaster was forced to talk about "one of those people," they'd say lesbian in this hideous tone of voice that just dripped distaste. One particular news story discussed the "crazed lesbian who broke into Sharon Gless' home." (This was while Cagney and Lacy was airing.) For me, I internalized all that venom directed when the newscasters said that word and so it's never been a word I particularly liked. Dyke, on the other hand, was a word I'd never heard before I came out in college. So while a great many gay women find the term offensive, it's always been one that I preferred.

Actually, I just thought anyone who wasn't heterosexual oughta go by "gay" since I have never really seen the need to separate out every little faction of the community ... but that's just me. :)

All of that is to say while the basic definitions of lesbian, dyke and gay woman all seem to describe the same concept, well, they really don't mean the same things.

One more seeming sidetrip and I'll wrap this post all together.

I read a LOT of Robert Heinlein novels as a kid. And I can remember reading in several of his books about the concept of manners and politeness. In several different books he talks about the brashness of youth and how many young people seem to think that being polite really just throws sand into the gears of life. If we would all just say what we mean, then things would move more quickly and efficiently.

I was confused. Being just a kid, I pretty much agreed that the ritual politeness of adults was a little crazy. But it bugged me to be categorized as "just a kid" in this way, so I thought about it a lot. And I eventually came to realize something.

"Political Correctness" is not bullshit. No, we didn't use the term back then. And I'm not talking about Orwellian double-speak, taking things too far political correctness. I'm talking about attempting to consider the other person's view and culture before opening our mouths ... or letting our fingers do the talking for us.

You see, when we say something that's on our mind with absolutely no internal editor on it at all, chances are we're going to use a few words that have highly charged meanings. Then, if we want to continue productive conversation with that person, we're going to have to back up and explain what we really mean, or soothe hurt feelings, or dig our heels in, call the other person overly sensitive and walk away from it all.

If we think a little more before we speak ... if we search for the right words when writing ... if we take the time to explain the context (even tho that takes longer), then we often have a better communication with a wider number of people and fewer hurt feelings or lost conversations. Which way is more efficient? Taking an extra ten words to explain part of the back-story or reason or taking an extra few seconds to choose a term carefully ... or "speaking plainly."

Particularly in online communications, our words serve as the grease which keeps the gears moving smoothly. Sure, it's messy work getting the right grease on the gears. Sure, it's kind of a pain to try to do that. And sure, sometimes you use the wrong stuff and the whole damn thing grinds to a halt anyway. The point is not whether the right word is lesbian or dyke or Sneetch without a green star on thars. The point is that we are not really objective, emotionless automatons who instantly grok the meaning and intent.

Sure, this can all go too far, to the point where we're making up words that are hopefully not offensive to anyone. Sure we can be so afraid to offend someone that we no longer speak up or talk about the things that need to be talked about. To me, that is PC bullshit. Fear of speaking is the bullshit. But there's a second side to that coin as well. It's just as bullshit to decide that words have but one meaning and no one should be offended by the words and jokes we tell. There are shades of grey here because we are not emotionless automatons.

Striking that balance between trying to think of the other person ... and still saying what you need to say ... that's being an adult. It's not politeness and ritual just for the sake of ritual and wasting time. I get what Heinlein was trying to say about manners now.

And I wish it was easier to convey our meanings and intents in our online communities. Because I've been online for a long time. I've been part of a LOT of different online communities, and I love them. There is something particularly delightful about meeting people from around the globe and learning about different ways of life, different cultures, different ways of thinking and being and living. But that also means there are lots and lots and lots of different ways to offend and be offended. To hurt and be hurt.

And while we aren't the "perfect," objective, impartial "adults" I'd conceived of back at the tender age of 7, we can at least try to listen to the other person. We can try to understand them. We can try to choose a less loaded word in hopes of carrying on the conversation longer. But ultimately, shit will happen because we don't all think exactly perfectly alike. We're not objective and impartial most of the time. And most of us are hard-wired to include at least some pettiness.

I just wish ....

I've been trying to finish that sentence for ten minutes now. There are so many things I tried to cover in this post. So many things I want to convery. But it's late, I'm really tired, and I don't know if any of this even makes sense anymore. I guess I'm just saying "why can't we all just get along?" Idealistic. Overly Pollyanna-ish. I know ... I know. But no matter how many times I see misunderstandings ... no matter how times I hear them ... I'm a writer. And I'm always trying to figure out how to bridge the rifts that words make ... with more words.

Well ... it's been well over an hour since I started attempting to unearth this particular dinosaur and uncover his bones, dust them off and examine them. Perhaps I should leave further interpretation for another day and other commenters.

Anyhow, I'll close with a bit of the song from which I took this title ... Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" :
so tired of the straight line
and everywhere you turn
there's vultures and thieves at your back
and the storm keeps on twisting
you keep on building the lie
that you make up for all that you lack

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:30 AM | Comments (5) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | TrackBack | Stumble