Tact (or lack thereof)
 

For some reason I'm reminded of my mother, giving one of her "you haven't suffered enough" lectures.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

Is this confirmation that IRL you are as annoying and stupid as mmmmmm is on the internet?

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I spent a good portion of my childhood in the rural deep South, and I worked in the urban South before law school. Those who used to speak all the time about "gay homos" and and "stringing them up" and "negros" and "keeping an eye on them" don't do that nearly as much anymore. Hell, some of them are, spend a lot of time with, or are married to, "gay homos" and "negros" these days. Sports and entertainment have changes peoples' views, too.

Things change. People change. Attitudes change. It's not gone, but it's not like it used to be. Do you have any idea what the people still making those comments today were like in the 80s? I do, because they were my neighbors, relatives and friends. I disagree strongly with your ill-informed feelings about social attitudes in the South; let's leave it at that.

Boy, this post reminds me what a culture shock it was to move to the north in the 80s. Like stepping across time...

Bullshit!
 

Mother Theresa's hospices in the US are basically about the same as her hospices in India. They flagrantly violate just about every health code known to civilized men. And, her order hires no actual medical staff (even though here they actually profess to offer medical care) - all patient care is given by nuns of the order, who (i) have generally no medical training at all, (ii) are woefully under educated otherwise and (iii) sometimes refuse to give personal care to men, because that would be indecent. Now, in the US, her hospices are almost all AIDS hospices. Huge majority of the patients are men, so (iii) really presents some problems, or should. I believe P&T did mention that no outside visitors are permitted and all inmates are proselytized relentlessly.

What they didn't mention is that this is happening not just in buttfuck India but in the US, and the civil authorities not only permit it but cover it up. They didn't need footage from third-world India, they could have filmed it at any number of facilities right here at home. Generally, western cities where she founded her little citadels of pain and suffering were so scared shitless of the Church and her obvious impending beatification that they gave the abominable practices a pass, or only required cosmetic fixes.

And, because (for various reasons which would be even more outable that this story is anyway) they thought she was responsible for gay men with AIDS not swarming to the Sisters of Mercy's US torture chambers in droves, the bitch's order formally accused my mother of being in league with Satan, and professed that they had actually seen her in the company of pipe-smoking demons. Really, I shit you not. (Fortunately, due to my mother's already being a damn heathen Protestant and therefore out of their jurisdiction, the local archdiocese insisted there was nothing they could really do about it.) Dumbshit, backwards, priest-ridden illiterate, superstitious, pig-mean fucktards. Not that I take it personally or anything.

(By the by, I think we can all agree that I am mostly correct when I say that this makes my mother unassailably cool.)
I categorically reject the notion that lolling about with naked people relegates one to a lower plane of spiritual enlightenment.

Revolver
 

2. on Snatch. Are you planning on seeing Layer Cake? It's on my list for the next few weeks.

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Ahem. Blondes, especially natural blondes, ARE in the minority. Are you retarded?

ABBA("dirty" blonde)Kiss

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Is this confirmation that if mmmm spends more time in the Deep South he'll be as big a twat as you?



eta: no insult intended to mmmmm. His last post on the subject was thoughtful and considered, unlike the general bitch-fest that seems to have been unleashed on him by those who seem to think they know everything about his life, including where he has lived, from seeing him on a chatboard.

There are still plenty of nasty, vicious, racist and homophobic comments made, and that's true in the Deep South and in San Francisco and in every place that is geographically or culturally in between. (Yes, in San Francisco. Homophobes tend to get nastier when thay are closer to gay people.) But to suggest that it is exactly at the same level as it used to be is, in my view, unrealistic.

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Ill-informed? I just lived through 7 years in Texas. Those were some informative years. Sort of like crossing that line you crossed, only in reverse. I'm sure it was worse in the past, but when repeatedly in social settings I was subjected to gay jokes, or even worse non-jokes, just stereotypical hateful comments, I don't think that the problem is as rectified as you seem to think it is. I think I have a pretty good understanding of what "polite society's" views on homosexuality are down there. And the Baptist church certainly is not progressing them. I did my best to steer clear of polite society.

Bullshit!
 

Sounds like: Same shit, different location to me. I don't fault P&T for not calling attention to every location.

Maybe. But we weren't talking about you. The people who grant holier-than-thou status to the icons P&T were using in this episode are the ones the argument was aimed at. And using someone's own standards against them (or pointing out how they pick and choose which standards to apply to suit their needs) was very effective.

TM

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Do you think that you could have steered clear of people who made gay jokes and hateful comments about gay people in Texas in 1985? I doubt it -- you couldn't even do that in New England in 1985.

I'm asking this as a serious question and not trying to engage in battle with you. It sounds as if you believe nothing has changed -- not just that the Baptists haven't progressed, but that the openly expressed hatred is just as prevalent now as it was 20 years ago.

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In Hank's dreams.

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Holy dog shit! Texas! Only steers and queers come from Texas!

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ncs never said there hadn't been progress, she simply said it was still prevalent, in her experience. this is pretty much the same point you made in an earlier post. if you are going to attack her, don't do it based on a misunderstanding of her premise as it was misinterpreted by mmmm so that he could go off on his own soapbox, as he so likes to do, even when he's not arguing the same point others are arguing.

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I couldn't steer clear of it in 2004, so I doubt I could have in 1985. I'm not joking. BigLaw. Firm functions.

What I am trying to convey is that there is a level of societal acceptance of homophobia that people don't even consider that some among their audience might be offended. Within my peer group, I had no problem sitting at lunch nad explaining to people why those comments aren't acceptable to me (still didn't stop the comments entirely, mind you, because even my friends who knew my POV were so used with the idea that it was okay that later comments would slip out in my presence). Outside of my peer group? Forget it.

People on the coasts and in Chicago can say to themselves "ah, we're on the right track with getting rid of homophobia" and pat themselves on the back, but until you've been in certain parts of the country, you are fooling yourselves. Why do you think the anti-gay marriage thing is such a big deal? It isn't because of people on the coasts arguing whether civil unions or marriage is the right way to go. Hell, Texas just took away the right of gay people to be foster parents. Even to children that have already been placed with them.

Head. Sand. Welcome to the US of fucking A.

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I agree with you here, but that isn't what I picked up from your prior post. (That may be due to my reading comprehension, or lack thereof, though.)

But it is a question of degree. You are certainly right that there is less overt racist/sexist/homophobe humor than there was 20 years ago, but that doesn't mean that there still isn't a *lot* of it floating around in certain places.

For example, around here (Podunkville proper, that is -- see below for East Podunkville), it's pretty rare to hear a racist joke. Sexist remarks (and sexist conduct especially -- jeeze, look at the rack on that court reporter!) and homophobic slurs, however, ain't that unusual. In some circles, and in certain parts of town, the racist jokes are told, too.