Opopanox, Home of the Arrogant Worm

Quizs & Teasers!

The Unexplained Quiz
Link Quiz Here
Very interesting, reminds me of the ‘Mysteries of the Unexplained’ book. Only got a 5 outta 10.

Death by Bathtub Quiz
Link Quiz Here
6 out of 10, gotta say this was an interesting one.

The Bowels Of History Quiz
Link Quiz Here
13 outta 20, maha. Not bad, but not great. Curious test, odd things and little known facts.

Riddles #25
Link Riddles Here
7 out of 10, not bad, but some of ‘em are sneaky, yes they are…

Riddles #4
Link Riddles Here
7 outta 10, not bad although I wish there were more answers of objects.

Riddles #2
Link Riddles Here
5 out of 5, this one was easy, though it said ‘very difficult’. I wonder who rates these? T’would be more interesting if there weren’t those blasted hints there.

Riddle Me This
Link More Riddles
4 outta 5. Mayhap I’ve been doing too many riddles.

Late late late, unfortunately.

SlumGulleon #36 at The Gimp Parade has a plethora of links discussing the Shootings at Virginia Tech, and the assumptions and subsequent boxes too often constructed when such tragedies occur.

Link Slumgulleon #36 Here

I was made aware of a work by Eli Clair through Feministe by Piny, who got it from Blue and MrSoul titled “Body Shame, Body Pride: Lessons From The Disability Rights Movement”

Link Eli’s Piece Here

An excerpt, random as I can make it,

My first experience of queerness-of bodily difference-centered, not upon sexuality or gender, but upon disability. Early on I understood that my body was irrevocably different from my neighbors, classmates, playmates, siblings: shaky, off balance, speech hard to understand, a body that moved slow, wrists cocked at odd angles, muscles knotted with tremors. But really, I am telling a kind of lie, a half truth. Irrevocably different would have meant one thing. Bad, wrong, broken, in need of repair meant quite another. I heard these every day as my classmates called retard, monkey, defect, as nearly everyone I met gawked at me, as my parents grew impatient with my clumsiness. Irrevocably different would have been easy compared to this. I stored the taunting, gawking, isolation in my bones; they became the marrow, my first experience of bodily difference.

Read this. His work is incredibly eloquent and touches nerves.

You know what would be nice? One pronoun. Pronouns don’t have to denote gender, it would be nice to have a singular one. Not very likely, though, people like to discern between states. I wish she and he didn’t sound so damn similar as well. If there has to be more than one, why can’t they sound radically different? Like, um. Hmmm. Take pez and hul. They don’t sound anything like each other, they’d do nicely. I’m just … really disliking pronouns right now.

And I’ve been thinking….why should people have to wait to change the sex marker on a birth certificate and I.D. card? An I.D is used to match appearance with the cardholder, so really, it should have what marker one deems themselves to be on it. Medically, well, that’s a bit tougher, but not much. If someone has a medical problem insurance shouldn’t be able to refuse to compensate monetarily, since (so far as I know) insurance can’t pick and choose whether they’ll cover certain procedures for one sex and not another. No one is built exactly alike, and there’s enough overlap to make the idea that people are absurd. If insurance refused coverage, I imagine a lawsuit would help greatly. As long as it isn’t for something they’d consider a ‘transgendered surgery’ when needed by trans people, damn the social and political climate. Mutter.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think I’d have allergies, what with the sneezing, sniffling and subsequent sore throat from sinus drainage. I don’t make a good patient.

Next up, in no particular order,

How do you find and manage words centering on difficult experiences when all they have is negative connotations?

I’ve been reading several difference pieces dealing with rape and ‘Coming Out’ and relating it (or not) to my own experiences, but that has to be saved for another day. Such a topic will take a few weeks of work since I’m being particular with it, and will likely turn the scroll bar to an infestimental size.

After hunting I found that mouthing the ends of my sentences is called palilalia. Now how can one break the habit? If someone knows, post a reply please, because I can’t find an answer. I thought I’d grown out of it until I (literally) felt myself doing it the other day, and now I’m a bit paranoid that it’s hurting me in job interviews, since I usually don’t notice. It’s difficult to explain. Either way, I’d like to get rid of it, chop chop! So bring on the answers, please.
Edited.

Two carnivals up, go check ‘em out! The writing is eloquent and clear…and well, superb, really. Doesn’t get much better than this.

Erase Racism Carnival is up at Double Consciousness.

Link Erase Racism Carnival

Carnival of Feminists # 36 is up at Fetch Me My Ax.

Link Carnival of Feminists #36

Lots of good pieces leading all over, gonna need your bookmarks for these because it saves writing down lots of I.A.’s. Does for me, anyway.

Something that’s touched on constantly wherever people speak and write, from various places and posts both online and irl, and as usual, I’m inserting my point of view into the mix. Shouldn’t be much of a suprise at this point. Right now, I’d even go so far as to type that it’s at least a third of what people deal with day-to-day.

Manners.

Kiddie corner to etiquette, because I don’t believe they’re the same thing.

Somewhere along the line growing up, manners got keelhauled and twisted. I kind of view manners like a courtesy to others when you infringe on something of theirs, be it time, money, person, whatever one can ‘own’. When you’re young, manners are “Please”, “Thank you” and “You’re welcome”. Wipe your shoes off before you enter a house, pick up your toys so others’ don’t trip, whatever is considered manners by the adults around you. A prideful smile is denoted to the children who are learning ‘em, positive reinforcement, dontcha know. But when age creeps up, things change, in a way. They twist, and not for the better. Reminds me of Alice exploring the looking-glass house.

Suddenly, dry shoes, thank you’s and napkins aren’t enough any more. Now people shush you and you’re expected to overlook disgraceful behavior because you’re old enough to recognize it, instead of having an adult explain, oh-so-patiently, that what someone else is doing is wrong. And they ascribe it to manners. You’re expected to keep your ‘manners’ but the opposing party is let go with impunity. Oh, sure, lots of reasons (dare I say, excuses) are given for those who lose (or never acquired) basic human deciency but that doesn’t help the ego of whomever is being disgraced.

You’ve heard of the reasons, sure! They’re just ignorant/stressed/raised badly/take-your-pick. Probably even made use of them yourself, lord knows I have. Can’t help but try and save face.

But being quiet and demur aren’t manners, no matter who says otherwise. Acting such in the face of, well, I’ll call it meanness for now, lets whoever is being shat on not upset relations between people. Which for myself, I think is do-able in extenuous circumstances (like a funeral), or if I have to deal with said people regularly in a business atmosphere. (read that as less trouble, less chance of being ‘let go’.)

This example shocked me in a way, because I’d never heard the new mother say anything remotely similar to what she sputtered below, either before or since.

A new mother was showing people the bed she found for her as-yet-unborn kid. Not new to parenting, just a new child. After everyone agreed the crib was just peachy and would be nice once it was wiped down, gossip flowed between the new mother and a woman about how scandalous it was that a set of parents they both knew bought their boy a Little Mermaid bed, because that’s what the kid said he wanted. When various remarks of the “I’d never do that” type complete with disbelieving noises were finished, I pointed out a bed was a bed was a bed, and its sole purpose was to be slept in. There was reluctant agreement, and the topic was swiftly changed.
And no, I didn’t butt into their conversation, for some godforsaken reason I was invited to the shower. I was never good at showers, and Ma insisted on company.

In short, people do not like being faced with views they hold when they cannot find a logical reason to their own satisfaction to back those opinions. They will shut up, and they will very quickly change the subject.

Sometimes it doesn’t work, in which case I attempt to avoid the person as if they had the Bubonic plague. Normally I’d try and bring it up with the offending party in private, but I find the outcome of that doesn’t usually work. People nod, look serious, then go ahead and do whatever it was again that offends and makes no bloody sense.

I can gaurantee ya won’t be popular if ya do this, though. And it isn’t very good for easing relations, either. But if you do it often enough in public to the offensive person, they learn to back off or to expect a fact they do not want to hear when they open their mouths. It’s tiring and a pain in the ass, and you’ll be called names and blamed for not keeping the peace. But here’s how I figure it;

It’s tiring listening to such bullshit and a pain in the ass to listen to such bullshit,

Calling names is a last refuge of a someone with no adeqaute reasoning, it’s done to make someone feel inferior or unwanted and divert attention elsewhere to their perceived problem, ie; you.

and

There wasn’t peace once they opened their mouth and let such assiness fall forth unimpeded. They disrupted things, they were uncouth. Certainly not peaceful.

It’s just…ugh. I disliked it as I grew up and saw what manners became.

‘Nough whining, thanks for tuning in to another broadcast where I shed absolutely no light on the topic of my choice.

Yes, I’ve been absent. Yes, I care. Yes, I’ve missed many things I wanted to write about, that I had plans to write about and that I didn’t get to write about. Half of it’s me being lazy. Yes, I admit it. The other half is life being busy and the other half is my brain has been folding in on itself. (Not literally! I don’t think…)

The rest of the half(ves…) is I just want to curse at vague and not so vague things in which reasoning seems to play little to no part at all. What is it now, three and four quarters of a half? Four whole, maybe? Like the Duke case. Good example there. (Fucking travesty, that.) Had high hopes for Blog Against Theocracy as well, but life’s been too hectic to make detailed posts right now, hoping it slows down a bit. What I can do is tell you mildly interesting tidbits about my experience in the rigged game of life.

(Yes, rigged. Good does not triumph over evil consistently enough for me to believe humanity will do ‘the right thing’ and love does not conquer all. Ya learn to deal, otherwise you’ll be a sobbing pile of goo gelling on a less-than-stellar convenience store bathroom floor. Assuming, of course, they let their customers use their bathroom. Blame that bit on my mother if you wish, its’ mention is due to her.)

Anyway.

My mother made me promise to go to church on Easter Sunday. And I went. What I didn’t expect to hear in a church where the congregation welcomes people who aren’t currently members are little children singing (the second song in. No, t’wasn’t a hymn.) about how they were going to conquer the world in the name of Christ. Perhaps it was a badly worded little ditty and I took it the wrong way. But I’m …doubtful.

For I remember the music you see, and it was sister to the rythmic and steady beat used in older-fashioned inspirational fighting songs, made to catch and hold your attention. The beat sounded a bit like the first few seconds of “This Is Halloween”, specifically the Manson version before what sounds like an electric instrument started, like a keyboard. Yeah, church had small drums included, but switched the keyboard for the organ. I can honestly say that’s the first time I’ve heard drums inside a church.

I’m sure I would’ve been more appreciative if the words weren’t there, and it was just the music. Because while I didn’t find the pastor’s sermon contained ‘conquering’ content, what they were teaching the children to sing leaves something greatly desired. For instance, the right to personal autonomy. I’m tentatively settling on agnostic for my beliefs, but I’m pretty damned certain that the Christ from the New Testament didn’t encourage conquering others at all, let alone to impose religious beliefs.

There was also other worrying bits, one being racist by omission of facts and an incredibly unpleasant (deliberate or not deliberate, I don’t know the pastor well enough to make an edumacated guess) connotation in a story the pastor told toward the end of the sermon that I think was meant to be heartening but that wasn’t in the least. Taking ten minutes out and explaining why the premises in that story were wrong would’ve been better than glossing the racism over. Dropping the second song in and replacing it a bit of history would’ve been even better. I’m sorry I can’t repeat said story in detail enough to make sense, because it’s hazy now.

On a similar note, my mother seems to have been swallowed by The Family Life Network. Between her insistence this morning that I pray and that it would serve me right if God ‘forgot’ me (granted, she was prickly this morning because she wanted me to go to church with her, and she didn’t remind me last night and failed to inform me this morning) and that, in her words, gays marrying make a mockery of marriage (Ha, try saying that tongue-twister five times fast), I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to deal with her. Or she me when it comes to a head, because she seems to be entrenching herself further by listening to that damnable radio station. I mentioned dowries and ownership, was even mentally debating on bringing up tax and medical benefits of legal recognition of marriage, but she wasn’t hearing the former, so why try for the latter?

She doesn’t like my opinions of TFLN’s broad casted beliefs, either. “Shut up” has become her new favorite phrase since she insists on playing it within my earshot. Especially when that guy with the Australian accent comes on to talk. She seems adverse to listening to reason, but I’m not sure how I can make reason seem…friendlier? It’s never been my specialty, unfortunately. Although she still claims she has nothing against gay people. I do wonder how she reasons it out.

This is an important question to me. How can beliefs like that coincide? How can one claim that someone is as good as someone else, and still decide that a particular group isn’t allowed to do certain things that others can do based on gender? How does it compute? It doesn’t seem possible but I’m running into people like that more and more often. Serves me right, I suppose, for getting out of the house more. I could understand if someone believed something like that before the obvious difference was pointed out, but after?

I keep expecting (on some level) that heads will implode with a slightly muffled *pop* at the utterance of such declarations, leaving the world a less confusing place. But it never happens. And if people don’t believe it and are just telling themselves “I’ve nothing against them, but…” to sooth their wounded psych, I wish they’d quit. It’s hard enough to pick out how someone acts vs what someone says without a person deliberately muddying the waters, wether it’s to patch a hurting ego or no.

What I Do vs What I Need To Work On.

If words could look shifty, these would. I’ve a bad habit of getting irritated and chalking up someone’s opinions that I severely disagree with and calling them an asshole. It’s not so much that I consider them assholes, because I don’t know them in ‘real life’, I don’t have an opinion of their personality and behavior either way, except as represented through their internet activities. Which, frankly, seem to be read as one sided depending on the mood a reader is in. I do tend to spout off if I think that their beliefs are incredibly stupid and also dangerous, and how likely I believe at a given time that they would act those beliefs out in ‘real life’.

Or when someone twists words. I’m not strict on grammar or punctuation (though I find it fun) but I absolutely can’t stand when someone deliberately misuses words. Deliberately being key, as no one is perfect, and I think it’s better not to wish one to be. Dangerous, but that’s a topic for a different post and I’m wandering again. Anyway, must work on not calling people names.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with any paragraphs above, but, the bus schedule is only in English here. Why? Towanda is Bradford County’s Seat, if I’m not mistaken. Meaning lots of business goes on there, especially due to the courthouse, Soc. Sec. Administration office, various job programs and welfare office, to name just a few. So why is the damn schedule only in English? Not only is it lacking translation, but the full schedule isn’t even posted on the pamphlets at the main bus stops. Talk about cheap. A computer terminal with a free program like Babblefish would’ve been better than nothing at all, if they really don’t want to pay for extra ink and paper.

There was a main who looked like he’d been there for awhile. You can usually tell who bussers are because our faces are unsmilely once we’re at a crappy bus stop. We look collectively miserable. Not only did he look miserable, (Which is a given dealing with the blue buses, really. Absolutely horrible, half the time they’re late or don’t show) he was working with limited English skills, which when considering the lack of translations for the schedule plus missing stop times, he had to be having a horrid time navigating and getting what he needed. He was trying to find a bus that would go to Syracuse.

He said thanks and left right before I managed to find someone who knew of a bus that went there from the valley after it was pointed out that we were going in that direction anyway which was, well, horribly bad luck. After traipsing to the community college (which is conveniently in the same building as almost everything else, including the bus stop) the woman said there was supposed to be someone in there to help when questioned about the schedule, but in my experience there never is. Or at least, I’ve never seen ‘em. He left at that point and I couldn’t find him afterwards. I hope he made it, that situation must’ve been hell.

Onto the hearsay!

In other news, I talked to the guy who runs a Hobby Shop here ’bout a week and a half ago. Apparently our gas prices are twenty cents over the national average (I don’t keep track as gas prices are fairly useless to me) and he believes we don’t have the ability to make it out of recessions. I know they raise it a smidge every week or two, cuz dad complains when he drives and lists the price differences.

Although, that would explain why in all three towns for every two stores open there’s at least one store empty, and I know it’s been like that for the entirety of my time here. Food prices have been rising drastically the last few years but I’m not sure how that works economy-wise. A favorite pastime here is taking bets on how long a store will last. I checked Wiki (Oh, darling of the internet encyclopedias! How I worship thee!) and my town is …shrinking in population. From the last three consensus’s, (which are the only ones shown there) it’s been shrinking since 1910.

I mean, damn. I wanna move.

Comics!

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c228.html
Multiple funnies from a mathematician.

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c222.html
And here I thought it was just me.

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c214.html
And again.

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c203.html
You are getting sleeeee-pyyyy……

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c205.html
Ha! A strip with candy buttons!

I always ate the ones soonest that came off rather effortlessly, then saved the harder ones for later, cuz they meant work.

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c194.html
This one is so going on the wall in my living room after I get access to a printer. Right between the ‘Bitter Jesus’ from Ghastly and that ‘Alice in Wonderbread’ strip I’ve got squirreled away.

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c154.html
A ha, evil-lution….

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c145.html
Dinosaurs ‘heart’
I agree with the word they as a third person singular nongendered pronoun. It sounds right to me, probably because I’ve read it a lot. But, on the other hand, I’d also like to see sie and ze come into fashion as alternatives instead of the making people use just he and she. Can’t see a reason not to have both, although ‘they’ would be especially nice in use where you don’t know what pronoun is applicable since it isn’t always timely to ask. As long as ’sie’ doesn’t sound like ’she’, otherwise it’s going in the ‘hir’ pile, because I can’t tell the difference auditorally when in context and it’s cruel and unusual punishment for my brain. I mean, I s’pose I could say hir, but it looks like it would sound like hear, here, or possibly her (depending on someone’s accent) and since the context of the word doesn’t differ like they would in the regular use of homonyms (since all pronouns are made to refer to sex and/or gender), I don’t know how I’d tell the difference.

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c78.html
Ha.

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c18.html
Tin Sn-ips

Link http://www.xkcd.com/c8.html
This one just looks kool. My brother and I found a nine legged spider once. T’was creepy.

I’ll talk about something that’s important to others next time, really I will.