On the growing trend towards unisex bathrooms
More from the neo-curmudgeon.
I’ve noticed a recent proliferation of unisex bathrooms. I’m not talking about the understandable kind—in a tiny restaurant, for example, where there’s only room for one bathroom. Or in airplanes. Or in the home, where I’ve shared bathrooms with male loved ones all my life, with hardly a complaint.
I’m talking about public places where there are at least two bathrooms, and yet instead of a Men’s and Women’s room, both bathrooms service both.
I don’t like it. So shoot me.
I don’t like the idea of some strange guy walking in on me if the door isn’t latched properly (it’s happened before, only with a woman). And men and women—to put it delicately—have somewhat different bathroom habits and bathroom hygiene needs. Not always better or always worse (you should see some of the scummy ladies’ rooms I’ve walked into); just different.
I know, I know—it’s all about the transexuals among us. Or something like that. And I have no beef with having a Men’s Room and Women’s Room and a unisex one in addition, if there’s room for three.
It all seems to have started in the universities, as so many wonderful trends do these days. But now there’s been unisex bathroom creep. I was in a Starbucks the other day that featured two, with the added complication of key entry. This meant that the fairly scruffy guy who came out of one of the bathrooms and saw me waiting there (the other was still locked and occupied) helpfully and immediately handed me the key. Not my favorite moment.
Good grief!
Blame it on the building codes….
If you’ve ever had to wade through the calculation requirements for how many public fixtures for each sex are required (right down to the number of lavatories and water coolers!), which at least in my state starts off with the basic square footage of the building in one code, but then you get certain allowances if you deduct wall thickness, corridors, etc., just to get to the occupancy load which is required before you can calculate to the minimum restroom requirements – which is in yet another edition of the code, before ever trying to figure out how to squeeze extra restroom space into a building footprint that can’t be enlarged, all while dealing with minimum access and approach measurements of toilet stalls that have to be maintained to stay within the Americans with Disabilities Act (yes, the federal government literally dictates such things as the size of a crapper stall!), it would be easy to see how simply moving towards unisex toilets is an attractive option for anyone designing a building or having to add a restroom facility.
Regarding the general cleanliness of facilities by improving the aim of the male half of the human race, they think they’ve found a solution!:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_fly_in_urinal.htm
There is also the informal both sexes bathroom.
As I believe I posted here before, during the recent 9/12 demo on Capitol Hill I was standing in a small line for the Men’s bathroom at the National Arboretum at the base of Capitol Hill when a middle aged woman, dressed like a Minuteman, rolled up behind me in line and informed all and sundry that, instead of standing in the horrendously long Women’s line, she was going to use the Men’s bathroom–and she did–because “she was a Nurse, and had seen it all already.”
I must say the men in the bathroom at the time–a very “mature” not to say “old” crowd, shall we say, took it with hardly the blink of an eye.
Question:
How do you speed up the women’s restroom line?
Answer:
Take out the mirror.
😀
I am getting sick of the transgender victim game. I am really sorry that people are confused about who they are, but quite frankly, it’s their problem, not mine. In fact, I’m sick of all the people out there who expect the world to revolve around their needs, especially their need for attention. I am much more concerned about girls and young teens having to deal with strange men if they visit the toilet in the mall. They also shouldn’t have to deal with boys their own age making fun of them if they ask a friend for a sanitary napkin because their period just started. How many transgender people are there compared to the number of young people who deserve a bit of protection while they are learning to cope with their own bodily changes?
I am not sure that’s it. As the posts above suggest, consistently with my understanding, the motivation is so that the genders equally share the pain of long queues.
See? I can post something without bitching about ERISA.
There needs to be 3 rooms.
Male.
Female.
Family (with the changing station and room for a stroller)
In every business. Can we get the ADA on that??? 😉
Baklava,
Please…please…PLEASE don’t give the feds more ideas!
Scottie: you got there before me!
Was just going to say – Neo’s suspecting PC reasons are understandable, but in this case the building code/ADA regulation is the reason.
Was just going to add to your comment: the law practice the principle of “the most stringent code supersedes”; it means that if in your municipality the local codes are more draconian than Federal ADA requirements, you have to follow local codes. In practice, in NY designing public restrooms became a nightmare. [I got to be fairly good at it, after making it sort of accidental specialty over the years]. In practice, if in NJ you can get away with a single restroom of 5’9″ by 5’6″, in NYC your minimum is 7’8″ by 6’0″ (door swings out, in both cases).
When renovating the existing office space the building is required to have at least one ADA-compliant restroom per certain amount of occupants. So instead of doing one M and one W, it is more economical just to provide one Unisex – and thus comply with the code.
Baklava: but the current code thought of that, too: it is mandated to have a changing station in a public restroom with minimum of 3 stalls, in Men’s as well as in Women’s.
I am not sure that’s it. As the posts above suggest, consistently with my understanding, the motivation is so that the genders equally share the pain of long queues.
But it’s impossible to make both sexes “share the pain of long queues”:
I can always pee behind a fence, wall or bush. Hahahahah!
I recall when unisex bathrooms was one of the worries of conservatives, back when feminists were pushing ERA.
Once I was at the urinal in a crowded men’s room on a British motorway when two women rushed in yelling “we’re not looking” as they each headed for a stall. The women’s room had a long line, and Europeans are pretty blase’ about such things.
That said, I can see why a woman would not welcome using a commode regularly used by men.
I can confirm the origin of this as being from college campuses. Ours started this a year ago. All I could think of was what would I do if a man/woman walked in on me? Should I be emabarassed or not?
How about “Men”, “Women” and “Undecided”?
http://www.appscout.com/2009/10/gay_domain_proposed.php#
and by changing our cultural us of sex, and replacing it with gender, you get a completely different outcome in law, even though most havent even looked up the term but understand it from common usage (As we understand most language).
sex references your physical body
gender encompases all mental forms
and through this, nothing can be taboo or crazy
that is, the crazy of the past is just the prescient of the future… its a condition in time not mind. gay was a mental condition, now its not… so anything else put through the same spagetti machine can come up validating anything. ergo shift to other determinants like religion, politics, ie state un pc.
the reason they started to use it is for its archaic definition… Archaic. kind, sort, or class.
and since class politics is just set theory with different words and inverting that the set is real but what makes it up doesnt exist. the individual is nothing but the arbitrary declared set is everything. a set is a class, a class is a set. you can define a set by some qualities that then put members into that set.
its a symbolic way of looking at the world. we forget we think in symbolics and conveniences and that our models are not real but tools.
if ya cant take a step back, then finding some sets that you can use to describe a view and lock it into a ‘reality’ is what you can do… if your a man named marx.
Usage Note: Traditionally, gender has been used primarily to refer to the grammatical categories of “masculine,” “feminine,” and “neuter,” but in recent years the word has become well established in its use to refer to sex-based categories, as in phrases such as gender gap and the politics of gender. This usage is supported by the practice of many anthropologists, who reserve sex for reference to biological categories, while using gender to refer to social or cultural categories…
anyway…
by using the term gender, one could insert class dialectics where they normally wouldnt be allowed – the family (and do to the family what is done for cohesion to the population- divide and conquer, and while your busy, teach your kids).
you would realize that the war of the sexes, in their language updated, is the war of the genders, which then means war of the classes… synonyms allow you to say something that using another word cant be said.
you could now insert class type arguments applied to economics to the family… and by calling it gender people would listen. if you called it class, they would realize the cross application of the abstraction.
anyway…
we are all equal now…
My 19 yr-old daughter and her mama were in a womans’ room in Boston last year, and noted the high heels in the middle stall, seen beneath the stall walls, were pointing the wrong way during audible urination.
The femimized figure who emerged was confronted, and apologetically explained that he had completed his gender makeover except for genital amputation. About which he felt some hesitancy. He hoped they would understand.
Tom, That sounds 0% complete.
And no – I don’t understand. Lock the door fool.
If you want to know where it all starts… go back to the post where i told of that famous german woman – Anita Berber. in that post, i pointed out that the core of todays movement to all this was the weimar republic.
The rape of innocence
neoneocon.com/2009/09/29/the-rape-of-innocence/
in one of those long posts explaining where it all starts is this:
Among those Anita Berber claimed as members of her vast sexual harem were Marlene Dietrich, Magnus Hirschfeld (the founder of modern sexology and gay liberation), Klaus Mann, Conrad Veidt, Lawrence Durrell, and the King of Yugoslavia.
and this:
Einstein of Sex – Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay German Jew living in 19th-century Berlin, founded the first gay political group and the first medical practice for gays, the renowned Institute on Sexual Science, which thrived until Nazi oppression.
do a search on his name, and the last name of our czar and see what comes up…
how many remember the 1960s unisex movement?
Was in what I thought was a ladies room at a service station off the Interstate last spring and when I came out of the second ladies “stall,” I saw a man standing at the lavatory washing his hands….
I gasped and ran for the door, apologizing for the intrusion saying, “I am so sorry, I thought this was the ladies room….”
As I fled out the door the man turned around and said….”I’m a woman….” At this point, I was even more embarassed and frankly rather decided I had run out of bathroom etiquette and anything else that might have added to the conversation.
Back out at the fuel pump and hanging up the gas pump, I observed “the he that was really a she” come out, get into the car with Massachusetts tags with her girl friend (I finally figured this out) and they both started pointing at me and laughing uproariously……
I don’t want to talk about this anymore…
When I used to to concerts a lot, the line for the women’s room was always several times longer than the line for the men’s room. I don’t know why that was and I never asked. It was commonplace for the occasional brave (or desperate) woman to go into the men’s room. None of the guys ever minded, especially if she was attractive.
The building code argument would work for new construction. But this was an old Starbucks, and I am fairly sure that until recently it had two bathrooms (one for men and one for women) that have now both become unisex without anything changing except the sign.
Tatyana,
I think between the two of us we’ve pretty much nailed the reasons why unisex rooms have become popular.
We go by a state code here, rather than the ADA – but since the ADA was based on our state code (same guy wrote both – and I was told once that he was wheelchair bound) they are basically the same – even have the same details.
What this means is that the local building inspector is enforcing the accessibility code requirements under state authority, and coincidentally it meets federal ADA requirements at the same time.
It’s crazy enough that I once witnessed the following situation.
Architect designs in a countertop with lavatory and gypboard walls surrounding counter on 3 sides.
At some point in construction, owner decides they want tile around the counter.
Inspector comes in at end of construction, as the owner is trying to get their CO, with a stick.
This stick is cut exactly to a certain dimension, with other dimensions precisely noted on it. He basically used this stick rather than a tape measure.
Anyway, the space allocated for the counter was precisely 1/2″ too short – and the inspector made them rip out brand new tiled walls and rebuild it using gypboard just to accomodate that 1/2″ dimension.
On the same job in one of the restroom stalls, the centerline of the wall mounted water closet was about 3/16″ of an inch off in the 18″ dimension they were supposed to have from centerline of water closet to face of adjacent wall.
Yeah, they had to take it out and redo that one too….
neo,
Check out this site:
http://www.adaabuse.com/
Regarding existing facilities, there is no grandfather clause at work.
Establishments are required to make *reasonable* efforts to comply – and the kicker here of course is what is *reasonable*?
A business owner may think adding steel bars in a stall is a reasonable effort to comply, but a jury heartbroken over a wheelchair bound unfortunate who has no other source of income who sues under ADA may think differently.
There have even been cases where individuals bringing lawsuits have taken tape measures into McDonald’s restaurants and measured the counter height to see if it was exactly what it should be under ADA – and you were looking at an automatic lawsuit if it was even a fraction of an inch short.
Scottie: I’m not sure the ADA applies to the case of transsexuality, however. See this:
The ADA, which protects against discrimination because an individual’s disability, specifically excludes protection from discrimination on the basis of being a transsexual, or having a gender identity disorder or sexual behavior disorder.
State laws:
The laws of some states and some local governments do provide protection against transsexual discrimination.
So, it depends on the state. Here’s the state-by-state breakdown (the blue states are the ones that ban discrimination based on gender identity/expression). Very interesting. I wonder whether it’s just about employment and housing, or if it extends to restrooms. Here’s a relevant chart that indicates that “public accomodations” (restrooms, locker rooms) are included in many states, and cannot discriminate on the basis of gender identification/expression. But I have no idea whether old bathrooms are subject to these state laws, which don’t come under the ADA umbrella.
I remember a conversation on another blog a couple years back similar in scope to this. Consider Europe. Men’s underwear have no flap, men’s rest rooms have no urinals. Everyone has to sit, or at least deal with the seat problem. Pretty soon we’ll be hearing jokes where men are complaining about women because they never put the seat back up.
The feminization of America is alive and well.
neo,
I believe the ADA does cover various forms of mental disability, and I am fairly certain it covers drug dependency – but I’m not sure and don’t have my typical resources at my fingertips at the moment (at the office I still refer to this quaint old fashioned thing called books, really puzzles the younger generation…lol.).
At any rate, I could see an argument being made that transgendering is indicative of a mental disorder – and an argument could be made on that count under ADA.
Not saying it would be a successful argument, and I actually seriously doubt it would be successful – just observing that I’ve seen odder things argued before.
To be honest, I’m not even sure what part of ADA a transgendered person would be able to point to as being out of compliance.
But back to the nuts and bolts of ADA – if a state does not have a state law that applies standards equal to or greater than ADA mandates, my understanding has always been that ADA overruled the state laws – transgendering doesn’t even enter into the discussion up to that point.
If a state does have a transgender type law, that type of specific provision goes beyond ADA (and common sense I would add) and ADA doesn’t enter into the equation and really doesn’t even address such matters.
The purpose of ADA was to make everything accessible, and the mental image everyone had was for people in wheelchairs to be able to enjoy the same access as everyone else.
The transgendering thing would not really fit into ADA under the predominantly physical mandates because transgendering doesn’t create a physical handicap to be overcome.
Well, at least as long as the surgeon doesn’t slip, I guess….
Anyway, I had a problem with the law when it was first passed, and still do, as I can find no reference in the US Constitution where the federal government was given power to mandate crapper stall dimensional requirements.
It’s always struck me as exceeding their authority – but it’s been upheld now for decades so it’s kind of arguing after the horse has bolted through the barn door at this point.
Common sense went out the door with the horse many years ago.
Can you imagine, for instance, a mandate to make a near vertical hiking trail ADA compliant?
They’d have to put in a fricking elevator in the middle of the wilderness!
ah..
the codes are executing what someone wants. someone approves, and in fact there has been a lot of work towards this by gslen, and others. we just dont pay much attention to them, so they kind of get to change the rules barely opposed
we keep believing that stupidity isnt accepted, but the truth is stupidity unopposed becomes prevailing wisdom.
a long time ago people tried to make this an issue. but no one wanted to connect everything to everything else… too big, so the big idea is the only idea that can run unopposed. see stupid rule above.
Unisex Bathrooms: The Controversy
womensrights.suite101.com/article.cfm/unisex_bathrooms_the_controversy
but even articles like that are far along the chain from where these ideas are formed accepted, molded and sent out. it comes from those books like the one the czar wrote that suggested forccd abortions, drugging the drinking water, etc.
most people dont read those long boring nutty tracts. but guess who does, and guess who takes them seriously? the ones seeking power, and feeling it in every inane rule that goes against people that they dont like
i said a long time that power has to be exercised to be felt. and that the sociopathic types realize that you cant feel your power unless your compelling people against their will to do something and they can do nothing about it.
the more you can do that to, the more power you have. but once exercised the feeling fades, the bad becomes habit for your victims. your no longer compelling them and so you have to come up with some new change to feel it again.
the political system that affords the most of that kind of thing is socialism. which is why the worst monsters have gravitated to it, they understand its potential to liberate that which has always been oppressed.
I suppose this is futile, but virtually all the commentors here could use a week of being confined exclusively to a wheelchair and forced to make their own way in public. It is extremely telling that the wheelchair symbol on the sign simply passed Neo by.
There is an ordinary and quite clear logic to this. Half the people in wheelchairs are men, half women, just like the rest of us. This means that there are three alternatives if you are serious about access: Two single gender restrooms that both have wheelchair access, three restrooms–one multigender with access and two single gender without access, or one multigender restroom with access.
Yes, I know, there is one other alternative: repeal the ADA and let all the people in wheelchairs wait until they get home to defecate and urinate.
I was at a youth hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland that had only one big unisex bathroom.
There were a couple of cute German chickies in there one morning.
I didn’t really appreciate the intrusion and they didn’t really appreciate all the scottish ale and chip-shop haggis I had the night before.
With only a couple pitchers of strong ale and a medium anchovy, garlic, jalapeno and pepperoni pizza I can have the toughest, most flannel-wearing, testical-hating lesbian begging for good ol’ sexist separate bathrooms.
Men, it’s up to us. We can win this one: No courtesy flushes, no air freshener, no lit matches, no mercy
I suppose this is futile, but virtually all the commentors here could use a week of being confined exclusively to a wheelchair and forced to make their own way in public. It is extremely telling that the wheelchair symbol on the sign simply passed Neo by.
People in wheelchairs are all gender-benders?
Joseph Marshall: no one’s ignoring the wheelchair. It’s not the issue (and by the way, that photo was a generic one I took off the web, not a photo of the actual Starbucks; I didn’t take my camera there!). The Starbucks had two original bathrooms, one for women and one for men, and both were wheelchair accessible. No problem for wheelchairs.
Joseph Marshall,
My disparaging comments regarding ADA have to do with the politics of it – not whether or not I was sympathetic to the disabled.
IMO, this is an issue that should have been left to the states, and indeed the state I reside in had already addressed the issue thereby making a federal mandate somewhat a moot point.
My own political philosophy on the matter is consistent.
I’m just not one to say, “hey – let’s ignore constitutional restrictions and just do what we think feels right at the time.”
There is a right way and a wrong way to have gone about this, and I think the wrong way was chosen.
neo,
This is a little more info than I think I understood initially.
Are you sure the restrooms were ADA compliant? As I noted earlier, some inspectors will bust you if you are so much as a fraction of an inch off in your measurements, and the restrooms themselves could have been modified years ago with simply adding some grab bars.
It could have looked like they were ADA compliant – but not actually met the measurement requirements.
If there was any other renovation work done in the Starbucks in question at some point, then the facilities would have been required to have been brought up to minimum code at that time, as well.
The general rule I’ve always gone by is, if you touch it during renovation, ya gotta bring it up to code.
Looks like they will have to adjust the etiquette, time for a classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzO1mCAVyMw
I don’t know about new and old codes and the ADA, but I do know a few things about the times. So – I’m shocked … . shocked that this is even an issue here. After all, aren’t we in the post-modern era now? Come on gang get with it! And credit should be given where it’s due. That is, there should be a little plaque under the unisex / wheelchair sign which says ‘Your Stimulus Money at Work’ and on others it might say ‘You’re Obliviously a Sexist Pig if You Have to Ask’.
[I want to keep the the male / female separate bathrooms.]
Is Obliviously a word? Is it a type of googles?
Obliviously = Obviously
JohnC: If “obliviously” isn’t a word, it should be. I will try to start using it whenever possible.
I suppose this is futile, but virtually all the commentors here could use a week of being confined exclusively to a wheelchair and forced to make their own way in public.
Nobody owes you ‘cuz you’re handicapped and you don’t deserve to pester me or demand things ‘cuz you are disabled. You don’t get to ‘force’ anyone to do anything ‘cuz all your limbs don’t work so good….
Mr. Marshall: you generalize unfairly – in this you resemble city filing authorities (Department of Buildings, to be precise).
Years ago (about 10), NY ADA-compliance rules were a bit more reasonable. They took into consideration the percentage of wheelchaired persons in the general population, and for public building (we are talking commercial construction here) requested the same amount of ADA-compliant restroom vs. non-compliant. Say, if occupancy was 80 persons, 4 WC for women and 3 for men (plus one urinal) were required, but only one of those, for both sexes, was supposed to be ADA-compliant. The WC itself could be all in one big public restroom, or separated into several single rooms- this way only one of these single rooms should be ADA.
The same principle – thankfully! – still governs seats in a public auditorium, be it a movie theater or conference hall: there is one ADA-compliant seat required per certain number of regular. Just like it happens in general population. Think, how many seats will be in a theater if ALL of them were required to be ADA? And who would waste money building more public-assembly places? That will be unsustainable. But that’s exactly what is the trend with re: public restrooms, advocated by ADA lobby.
In a last big courthouse project I worked on all jury rooms (one per courtroom) are required to have one M and one W each; under current NY code we had to make ALL these rooms ADA-compliant. Not one unisex ADA restroom per floor (as most likely will be more than enough for a number of wheelchair-bound members of the juries), but 14. Do you know how much available sq. footage this unreasonable requirement cut off of the other functional spaces?
Scottie: re: your example. As far as I know, private residential construction for single-family dwelling is not required to follow strictly ADA-compliant fixtures and restroom’ dimensions; I think that inspector overstepped his authority. Although – who knows what crazy rules your particular municipality might have imposed.
Neo: State and Federal ADA-compliant building codes regulate existing buildings, too. I can only guess that particular situation with the Starbucks cafe you visited; one possible scenario:
-they started some minor renovation that included change of plumbing fixtures or erection of new partitions (the scope might not include restrooms at all)->they were required to file at DOB ->DOB sent inspector to the premises, who among other things wrote down that the number of restrooms of either sex does not correspond with recommended table in local building code ->instead of building additional ADA-size restroom or stalls they had an adviser to recommend them this shortcut: declare both restrooms unisex, so every time the inspector counts W fixtures, they can say: we have two, and every time they count M fixtures, they can also say: we have two! Apparently, it worked.
In NY the building code became so convoluted and unreasonable, that there is an official profession of expediter: a person whose sole job is to push the construction plans through corridors and offices of Department of Buildings, to gather all the necessary stamps and approvals…
Speaking of crippled people, the lil’ crippled bitch that works with me is giggling because she used the sympathy factor to trump reason and screwed me out of a implementing the better plan … just a lil personal note … and now I’m done >:-()
I just went through the posts a second time.
not one person wanted to find out where this all comes from.
everyone was more focused on using whatever they know to create a dialogue to explain what it is.
not one person thought to read and check out what i said. not one.
Starbucks was a major contributor to this years San Diego Gay Pride Parade… they gave financial support to GLAAD (The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation)…
the point i am making is that it has nothing to do with what the coffee klatsche here is musing about.
bounded inside a nuthshell, they are all kings of infinite space, including some bizarre form of omniscience.
its very annoying that this false dialogue is always the main dialouge, and the facts behind almost all we talk about are completely ignored.
Starbucks Pride Alliance Partner Network
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seattle-WA/Starbucks-Pride-Alliance-Partner-Network/37577312268
We work to effect positive change and increase awareness of the LGBT community within Starbucks. We strive to cultivate an equitable, dynamic, and supportive environment for LGBT partners, allies and customers.
the issue of whether they should or shouldnt is not my business.
why do i post bigger posts?
because how do you reach a crowd listening to their own la la las in a goldfish bowl?
i gave the whole pedigree of the thing (actually i left out the stuff from the UK)… weimar germany, a guy named max… they all came here cause hitler was going to kill them, and then continued their crusade.
starbucks didnt do this to meet some state standard in bathrooms… they did it in support of the lgbt community, gslen, pride alliance network, the seatle lesbian gay film festival, GPIS, and a huge list of them.
how many know about this?
Same Sex Kiss Day At STARBUCKS
This one-day event coincides with “Tax Day” to highlight the fact that “LGBT couples have yet to be granted the same rights to file our taxes jointly on a Federal level, and we can still be fired for being openly gay in the workplace. That’s why you’re encouraged to be seen on Tax Day, April 15, 2009, spreading your love with a KISS!”
Same Sex Kiss Day calls for couples to go to a neighborhood Starbucks coffee shop and during one (or all, if you wish) of four designated times throughout the day, exchange a kiss with your same sex partner or friend. The set times are at 7:15 am, 12:15 pm, 5:15 pm, and 8:15 pm.
Why Starbucks? Well according to the Same Sex Kiss Day site, “Starbucks has been committed to LGBT rights since the beginning of time offering domestic partnership insurance, quoting gay artists on their coffee cups, and funding our gay pride parades.”
i mean come on…
it has NOTHING to do with anything most have discussed here. it has to do with the companies vast political work in this area, and having their enterprise follow in the same lines.
all above i got from typing in starbucks lgbt
oh thats so hard…
how can anyone here think that we can turn things around when the ones who want to turn things around are just as bad as the ones that dont, but just want a different direction.
how can they say they stand for truth, when they cant type 14 characters and hit enter.
ok gray, mizpants…
if your listening, you now know why i post a longer post. because its often like listening to a bunch of tribal people trying to make up on the fly an explanation for sometnign in the world. they have not let go of the primitive idea that facts exist apart from mind.
so BEFORE in the Polanski post i showed where this movement started. how it spread out to directors and authors, and media… i pointed to the fulcrum point. spelled out names, provided links.
last night i came here, and said, lets test gray and mizpants, and prove yamarskar right…
and so i put up a short post. i linked to the prior post at neos. gave the name again, then gave one small key quote with the key name. and suggested search our czar jennings with that name.
NOT ONE DID
if they did, they would find a wealth of stuff on jennings that top the stuff they are listing today.
we are in this position because we have abandoned the judeo christian WORK ETHIC, and have adopted a kind of complete and total lack of any curiousity, any validity, any real empirical knowing.
its really sad..
anyone remember this?
Tempest brews over quotes on Starbucks cups
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002455480_starbucks29m.html
Maupin’s quote – one of several dozen in “The Way I See It” promotion – says his only regret about being gay is that he repressed it for so long.
“I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don’t make that mistake yourself. Life’s too damn short.”
that sure sounds like they are embracing a politiacl point, and not really worried about local zoning laws..
anyone go to the starbucks website?
Scottie, thought a bit more about your example: that extra 1/2″ is precisely the thickness of two tiles+moisture barrier+mortar bed, on each side of the lavatory!
If only the owner asked his architect to accommodate tile installation BEFORE the construction started – he’d be OK. See, i’m always on the side of the architect, haha
Artfldgr
why do i post bigger posts?
because how do you reach a crowd listening to their own la la las in a goldfish bowl?
You think it is a big revelation that Starbuck’s supports the trendy homosexual stuff?
Our entire current culture is fascinated by buggery and munchery! And your going to come down from your mountain and lecture us poor dopes with the wisdom:
“OMG Starbutt’s is all about teh ghey!”
Far more interesting to explore the idea that well-meaning federal regs are leading to this insanity.
if your listening, you now know why i post a longer post.
‘Cuz you are condescending, pedantic, long-winded and off your psyche meds?
Tatyana,
The tile example I gave was in a publicly owned building, but you are correct regarding private residences not meeting ADA requirements – as far as I know they don’t apply (yet!).
The exception being that if you have condos or such, on multilevel buildings, and access to the residences have to be accessible. Not necessarily the residences themselves, just the access.
And yes, that 1/2″ dimension is EXACTLY the width of (2) installed tiles.
Seriously, think about that folks – for the width of a couple of pieces of tile a very nice piece of tilework had to be ripped out and wasted to meet a code that in the situation I described will most likely never be noticed.
It was quite expensive, as there were probably a half dozen rooms this affected.
——
Now now, Tatyana – you’re hanging around with architects?
Come back from the dark side………!!!!!!!
——
😀
Now regarding Tatyana’s example of some jury room restrooms – think of it this way.
Floor space is always a premium. Construction costs for buildings are estimated in $$$$ per square foot.
Now figure that the square footage of a building is now mandated to accomodate a certain minimum number of ADA compliant fixtures.
These types of fixtures take up more space than the regular type, and are generally more expensive.
Now your costs are going up, and for no real perceivable benefit except to say you made accommodations for the disabled, while at the same time your usable floor space in the building is being reduced.
What’s wrong with setting aside a jury room or two specifically for when a jury member is wheelchair bound?
In Tatyana’s case, they mandated instead that apparently all of these rooms had to be accessible.
That’s a lot of floor space, and a lot of money – and since it’s a jury room it’s gonna be a public building so that means it’s going to take more tax dollars, which means the local citizenry has to work that much longer during the year to pay that tax burden.
Somehow the cost/benefit analysis in that case doesn’t seem to square up in a sensible manner….
thanks again rickl for your unmindful; unconscious; and unaware support 🙂
Scott,
architects are best people! [well, when they can lose their ego for a sec and actually listen to an interior designer – moi, hehe] – after engineers, of course.
About the courthouse: all this that you said is correct, with addition: the same madness was applied to ALL judge’s chambers, all 18 of them. Have you ever seen a courthouse where ALL judges are wheelchair-bound? We had to cut judicial library from the program and combine 2 conference rooms into one in order to incorporate this mad ADA restrooms (7’8×9’2, doors swinging in) per judge. And it’s not the end of the story: EACH courtroom had to be ADA-accessible for the bench, not only for witness stand – that means ramps, all 3 or sometimes 4 per courtroom, imagine our joy…
The “Toilet Seat Debate” (seat up or down?) was heretofore a domestic argument.
With public unisex bathrooms, this contention will also be made a public issue.
Out of the can, so to speak.
Tatyana,
I work for an engineering firm, hence my reference to architects being on the “dark side”….lol.
We are currently wrapping up a very similar project to the one you described, and yes there are ramps to both the witness stand as well as the judges bench – in all courtrooms.
I see a day in our future where people are going to get stuck at the entrances to older buildings as they are unfamiliar with the concept of steps and expect to see a ramp at every entrance…..
shout out to the other consulting firm employees here – i work for a firm that does architecture, engineering, interiors, and landscape architecture so i have seen it all. here is the order of dark-sidedness:
light side – engineers (word! that is me)
dark side – architects (sorry!)
really dark side – contractors
blackest of black dark side – government agencies
an architect will always team up with an engineer against the other 2.
a contractor will always team up with anyone against the 4th.
speaking of court houses, we had one with a disabled judge who also happened to drive a cadillac escalade. we had to redesign the whole parking garage and go back to planning board just for him. it was great.
*anna – we can trade stories till all the judges are satisfied w/their accomodations!
does your firm busy? are you hiring? [sorry for OT, Neo]
nice you knew the info gray…
but it seemed others didnt..
and as i said… when it was a small post with links… what happened?
the point was not to give you another shot at kicking someone, but to show that your constructive stuff doesnt work.
“if your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives… your right to anything at others’ involuntary expense means that they become rightless.” Leonard Peikoff
“if your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives…
Like the desire for unisex bathrooms. Excellent point, Arfldgr.
Joseph Marshall,
Don’t pretend it’s black or white with wheelchair access.
Right now what we have is a situation where if you have a business you have a target on your back.
If you are unaware of the situation then you are ill informed.
There are plenty of places people can go and things to do and services that are given to people in wheelchairs and NOBODY is talking about going to the days of no paved roads and tree limbs in every body’s way…. or whatever hell crisis scenario you are trying to convey.
And yes. I’ve had my upper leg broken (one main bone) and been in the wheel chair and then crutches for awhile.
And having been there…. I can tell you I’m NOT as mean as you and wouldn’t wish all the people on this blog were confined to a wheel chair.
You know what. When we are in the situation we are grateful for many things and I don’t look upon people like you kindly. Idiot.
You are as mean spirited as they come.
“The tile example I gave was in a publicly owned building, but you are correct regarding private residences not meeting ADA requirements – as far as I know they don’t apply (yet!).
The exception being that if you have condos or such, on multilevel buildings, and access to the residences have to be accessible. Not necessarily the residences themselves, just the access.”
Oh, then your locale is behind the times. In Los Angeles, you also have to have a certain number of either accessible units, or what they call ‘convertible units’ which can be easily changed to ADA compliant primarily by changing fixtures and adding things like grab rails. On every floor.
As for single family dwellings (lingo for private home) being required to comply, just give them time. They’ve been talking about it in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica for some time now.
Of course, these sorts of requirements are to some extent driven by the agenda makers who want to change society, side effects be damned.
anna said:
“here is the order of dark-sidedness:
light side – engineers (word! that is me)
dark side – architects (sorry!)
really dark side – contractors
blackest of black dark side – government agencies ”
Yep – that about covers it!
Another (kind of) funny story.
Approximately 15-20 years ago I worked on a lab building for a small community college.
It was relayed to the firm I worked for at the time (an A/E firm) that this college had a substantial number of ….ahem…*overweight*, individuals.
They were so paranoid about ADA at the time that they decided to classify them as disabled, and everything from the parking lot layout to how wide to dimension the corridors was predicated on how big some of these people were all because nobody wanted a lawsuit.
Seriously.
douglas,
I haven’t heard of my state mandating that sort of thing yet, but again – please don’t go giving anyone ideas!
The biggest issue about ADA – aside from the Constitutional issues noted in an earlier post – is that it gives anyone filing a complaint a huge club to beat property owners over the head with.
The one filing the complaint need make only a minimum effort to get the lawsuit ball rolling, while the property owner will either incur substantial costs defending themselves against a lawsuit – or simply cave in and make whatever changes to their property the one filing the complaint demands (along, oftentimes, with a substantial monetary award).
It would take a very stubborn property owner to fight such lawsuits, as any lawyer they hire is going to automatically advise them to settle out of court – they know what kind of image is created for a jury when the other side has somebody rolling into the courtroom in a wheelchair.
It is a very un-even playing field, and the best of intentions is not going to help you in that situation.
*Douglas: yep, same thing here in NYC.
Once you touched a restroom in a condo apartment, you have to design reinforcements in the partitions for future-possible grabbars (that means tearing down that wall, ha!), used ADA fixtures and factor in 5″turning circle. Even if the clients are not disabled.
Since we are trading stories:
an architect-friend of mine was doing some freelancing for a condo developer. Zoning mandated the building complex to be no higher than 4 stories; so no elevators were offered. But that didn’t automatically eliminated number-of-ADA-complied-apartments’ requirement. So they ended up an wheelchair-ready no barrier” apartment, 1br on the area enough for 2bdr – on the second floor.
anna & Tatyanna,
Figured you two would get a kick out of the bedtime story I told my kids when they were younger.
There once were 3 little pigs.
The first pig was a contractor, the second pig was an architect, and the third pig was an engineer.
Each pig built themselves a house.
The contractor pig built his using only the lowest bidder for each sub-contractor, adhering as tightly as possible to the required building code (aka, minimum acceptable standards), and planned to occupy the house for only one year before flipping it for a profit on the housing market.
The engineer pig just shook his head as his design was completely ignored after the contractor pig obtained his building permit using the engineer pig’s design documents….
The architect pig, in turn, built a monument unto himself.
It was beautiful.
It was full of graceful, pleasing lines.
It was avant gardist in concept and design.
It was a “green” design that was LEED certified!
Of course such advanced design techniques required a certain amount of compromise, but the contractor pig who ultimately built it for him assured him that it still met the building code (still aka *minimum acceptable standards* of construction).
The architect pig did have a momentary qualm when presented with the list of RFI’s and Change Orders, but ultimately decided that the contractor pig knew what he was doing as he was very experienced in such matters.
Again, the engineer pig only shook his head as the architect pig and contractor pig decided which parts of his design they could change in order to cut the increased overall costs back down to within budget due to the change orders presented by the contractor pig….plus the fact the architect pig had underestimated his total construction costs by an order of magnitude and was loath to give up any visible design features when he figured he could easily make up the difference by cutting back on the hidden aspects of construction.
Te engineer pig, on the other hand, built his house using the strongest steel, the best CMU, the finest grade woods, the longest warrantied shingles, the tightest and most energy efficient double paned windows and doors, even a hardwired home network and entertainment system!
He designed in a solar water heater system and also a backup gas powered generator!
It was ugly (but then again engineers are in charge of ugly) but it was his and he was happy.
At the end of construction, the big bad building inspector came a’callin.
The first house he came to was the contractor pig’s.
The big bad building inspector ruffled his fur and he huffed, he puffed, he found numerous code violations and refused the contractor pigs Certificate of Occupancy and BLEW the house down!
The contractor pig went squealing to his buddy the architect pig and sought refuge in his domicile.
The architect pig and the contractor pig huddled together, hearing the footsteps of the approaching big bad building inspector.
Upon arriving at the architect pig’s house, the big bad building inspector didn’t even bother to go inside.
He took one look at the structure, smoothed back his fur, laughed, and began huffing and puffing, and in no time he BLEW the house down!
Scampering out of the crumbled wreckage of the architect’s house, the two pigs ran a scampering to the engineer pig’s house.
Arriving at the engineer pig’s house, the architect pig and the contractor pig took refuge, cowering in the closet as the engineer pig relaxed in a recliner and continued watching FOX news on his 60″ flat screen TV.
In no time at all they heard the approaching footsteps of the big bad building inspector.
Upon arriving he again ruffled up his fur, reviewed all documentation and could find nothing out of order.
He twitched his ears and reviewed the design documents against actual construction, and could find no deviations.
He bared his canines and asked for a copy of the change orders, and was told there weren’t any.
Finally, exasperated, the big bad building inspector huffed and puffed, and huffed and puffed, and huffed…and puffed…..but he couldn’t blow the engineer pig’s house down cause the engineer pig knew his $hit…..
Finally, in a rage the big bad building inspector blew up himself – and the engineer pig ended up with a nice new fur skin rug for his living room.
Not being a very cold hearted soul, he did help the contractor pig and the architect pig design new homes – but he also presented a bill for additional services in the process.
This time the contractor pig and the architect pig built their houses strong, and they all lived happily ever after.
The end.
my opinion is that wheel chair access as an argument has no place here.
why?
because the poor guy/gal in the wheel chair has it rough most of the time. and most people see that and understand that. also, most people internally know that there is absolutely no correlation between a person in a wheelchair and deviant or criminal activity. (while there is always a small number of exceptions, they prove the rule, not disprove it (otherwise what would they be exceptions to?))
the problem was the mandates. that a store had to close if it couldnt accomodate them.
and before you say i dont understand, i am quite surely 50% + deaf. and unlike a wheel chair a deaf person gets zero sympathy and help. they are treated as morons, and other things if their speech doesnt sound right. people will refuse to help them in a store, and ignore that they exist. and what i find the worst is that cars will beep their horn so they can blow through a yellow light or a street with no signal assuming every person can hear. i have ended up on top of a hood of a car more than once.
but do i say that intersections should have pop up walls that match the lights? not at all.
while i think that forcing a small business to put in a ramp when the business is too small for such is wrong. i think its even more wrong that the state takes billions from us and then exempts themselves from that law and rules so that subways are semi accessible. heck they dont even take the time to mark off which stations can accomodate things so its a completely hit or miss situation. always focused on new business they completely leave out the old unfinished stuff.
there is a lot of literature and study linking homosexual behavior to other deviant behavior, like pederasty, pedophila, paraphilia, copraphilia, and sexual sadism as a norm for many.
is this wrong between consenting adults who are playing games? not at all. who cares what they do by themselves for entertainment. (heck when i was an emt i was called on several runs because of their games. in a general way, somethings dont belong going places they dont belong (i am talking lightbulbs here))
every male that abuses a male child, is technically what? every female that abuses a female, is techically what? what we have done is remove a distinction to hide the obvious.
john wayne gacy was not just a serial killer and a pedophile, he was a homosexual one. we dont draw distinctions between those and the ones that attack along other lines. why? beacuse if we did we would see a much larger number on one side.
same with fathers vs step fathers. bio fathers are the least likely to hurt the children. mothers are more likely to hurt the children. step partners are even more likely to hurt them, but are more likely to be prevented by the bio father. step fathers are the most likely to abuse the kids.
the feminists have us combining fathers and step fathers so as to mix up the data. same is true of other parts of the same movement that seek to compartmentalize each condition into its own special category.
however if you look at the numbers a male child is much more likely to be a victim of another male than he is to be a sexual victim of a female. the numbers are not so clear for girls. however the left glorifies homosexual drugged rape in the vaginia monologues as ‘good rape’, and even whoopy and others wanted a get out of jail free card for polanski. and thats because the left used the false work of kinsey to establish that children are sexual beings.
and so if they are not allowed to have sex we are oppressing their natures,and so they have to be taught as early as possible so as to beat out the oppressive message and they can be healthy.
this gets the oppression fighters to implement luckaks ideas by equicalency. (like abortoin and eugenics. they are arguing equivalents and then making a false separation).
PC news keeps things APPEARING differently and tends to play games with the appearance of things so that we as a culture cant get a sense of whats valid or not, except thorugh their pronouncements.
so we miss stories like this.
Gay Duke University Official Arrested
Cops: Duke Official Offered Adopted Son For Sex
FBI Nab Frank Mccorkle Lombard In Internet Sting
cbs2.com/national/Frank.Mccorkle.Lombard.2.1062818.html
[and nambla is all male seeking boys… the equivalent female org is not present since we dont prosecute women a la vagina monologes when they do the same unless its interacial or violent. same as there is no such thing as a female transvestite since we normalized that to be a look]
Authorities said that Lombard tried to persuade a person – who he did not know was a police officer – to travel to North Carolina to have sex with a child.
The detective’s affidavit charges Lombard said in an online chat that he had sexually molested the boy. The court papers say Lombard also invited the undercover detective to North Carolina to have sex with the young boy and even suggested which hotel he should use.
Authorities told WRAL that Lombard told the undercover officer that he has seen and may still have videos depicting children under 5 years old engaging in sexual activity, but that he cleans his digital collection every so often for fear of detection. Those files may still be traceable, a digital specialist told WRAL.
there is even a bigger kicker here
In the chat transcript, WRAL reports, “F.L.” is asked how he got access to a child so young. “Adopted,” he replied, and said that the process was “not so hard … esp (sic) for a black boy.”
In the chat, “F.L.” told Palchak that abusing the child was “easier when he was too young to know what was happening and when he couldn’t talk …He had a little too much Benadryl. Was knocked out.”
basically it was more pc to let single gay males adopt black children… (if you know the left you know the logic of this one clearly).
look at the pattern here.
luckaks bela kuhn state and its experimentation at using early sexualization to destroy the culture by heading it off at the pass where child and parent/s have what was a sacred place.
kinseys raping babies to get them to orgasm (and using prison deviates to develop numbers from. and how his ‘work’ now is hugely sited in law).
Meades false garbage work (now known also to be false), also dots teh ideological landscape.
vagina monologues promoting drugged homosexual pederastic rape of a girl as a ‘good rape’, with the same attitude also transfered to members of the same community like polansky, and many others not caught (micheal J passing his childhood experiences too).
earlier and earlier sex education in school. making it EASIER for older people to do this to children. more liberal drugs available, which also facilitates these experiences… oversexualization of the media. revisioning all the childrns books and stories.
new socialist man (below the elites) is to be able to be separated by male and female, so that breeding can be controlled. we normally would not be healthy in that since we are a social species, so they think they can get aroudn this, by making bisexuality dominant. new socialist man is also homogeneous like cows… that way there is no huge menu of how to treat the prols.. and since they are like cows, none of them are more important than the others. imagine farmers saying cow j456BG is special… each are to work out their prime years, are not allowed to harm their work… they are to work and exceed their worth… if not, then they have to go… euthanasia for the elderly by some means.
its all pretty clear, but the idea is unconscionable to the average person. but to those with no conscience, how could it be unconscionable? to them its perfectly pragmatic. to their followers, its better to be on the winning side.
too much work today… 🙂
“unisex bathroom creep”.
I do no think that means what you think it means…
Artfldgr said:
Please forgive my lack of sympathy.
Numerous people have complained, on numerous occasions, about your long, rambling posts, your lack of attention to capitalization and spelling and punctuation, and so forth. You clearly choose not to follow that advice. And then you complain that nobody pays attention to you.
You obviously have important things to contribute to this discussion, and to many other discussions. But it’s up to you to encourage your reader to read what you’ve written. If you make your reader work too hard to understand you, the reader will, at some point, give up and read something else.
If you insist on writing the way you’re used to writing, then your reader can certainly choose to ignore the things she’s used to ignoring.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Daniel in Brookline,
it’s up to you to encourage your reader to read what you’ve written. If you make your reader work too hard to understand you, the reader will, at some point, give up and read something else.
I see… I do understand our new culture.
I understand that people who say what you do have no work ethic, and cant apply themselves to meet someone else half way. that you need to have your meaningfulness validated by having things made to your specifications. And that its offensive to you that I don’t write things that a less smart, less experienced, less knowledgeable person who is really looking for entertainment, and a pleasant ride through life, and really doesn’t think anything is important enough to not get their hedonistic jollies off on some level (or they are out of there).
I think I get it….
If I want you to learn the hard stuff, I have to make it palatable, or else!
Or else what?
Or else I will listen to the promises of the left, they are a lot more fun as they are always writing their propaganda for the stupidest section of the population (I can quote Hitler on this if you want — but then it would be too long for you).
So lets codify the new rules for neo…
That this is a collective, and that the people who want to participate, wont unless it’s made for them, caters to them (even if their interests are whimsical and capricious).
That to maximize the size and participation of the collective and not make some people feel bad or left out, because the work is too hard.
We will implement dumbed down standards, that way they don’t have to strive upwards. That is, the idea here is to lower all obstacles, that way they can step over them easily and not have to break a sweat.
The new public standard will not return us to the level of the past, when James Fennimore Cooper wrote stories for young people at 13th grade level (like phd today)… and we will not return to the business standards level of the 1970s where common writing was at the 8th grade level. We will instead strive to maximize inclusiveness and we will write at the 5th grade level.
We are to endeavor not to ever show different levels of ability below the minimum or risk lack of inclusiveness.
Any person, who doesn’t comply, as made clear by our poster, will be banished from the collective. Their works will not be read; they will become a non entity. Banished into, into, now what was that word? oh yeah, irrelevance… Along with Plato, Thomas Aquinas, those wig wearing Americans with the lederhosen, and all the others who wrote at a level too high for the common man. we also have to banish engineering, and physics and mathematics… obviously long, complicated, and not fun, so no one wants that either.
How Stalinist of you.
If we apply this to society at large, no one would get out of kindergarten.
Why?
Because everyone outside who learned more would make the new people feel dumb as their writing exceeds.
Are you getting the hint of how they got everyone to favor moving lower and lower instead of higher and higher, and how now that is inculcated into how we think? They just had to convince the ones at the bottom to impose rules to those on the top who are not saying what they want to hear. (truth is not pleasant)
From henceforth. After this post..
no post should exceed 500 words. if something is too complicated and unknown that it needs more than 500 words, then it probably wasn’t worth knowing. If it’s not pleasurable to read and tells you things you don’t want to hear, then that cinches it as not being worth knowing
The following authors and references are not allowed.
Why? Because if they are, then writing from them will make posts too large, and make them too complicated, and not tell us stuff to make us feel good. And why would we want to do that?
Gurdjieff is out, you cant understand him, and I make you feel dumb when I post stuff that is out of your league.
You want your indulgences scratched, not have your mind expanded.
You want your reality confirmed, not expanded.
You wish comfort over freedom
I get it…
Which is why school isn’t fun either, except maybe liberal schools where you can have lots of sex and take drugs… and learn fun things that let you know who to hate (which is fun) and be patted on the head for it. but that’s a digression and digressions are also not allowed. Recursive literary structures are too complicated for the lowest largest readership.
Henceforth, no more digressions. They make posts go past 500 words. And that just turns people off.
Just to be clear… do not bring in:
Kurt Gé¶del he is a mathematician, and you know they are boring
Nietzsche, he is too complicated and long and confusing
Karl Marx, his work is too complicated for lesser minds, only our betters can of course read him. Anyway his das capitol is too big, and the communist manifesto even larger
Hitler, he was too smart, he tricked a whole country at the peak of their intelligence in history, and besides his book is big.
Tolstoy, forget it, his book is actually used as an example of how large and hard a book to read can be.
Lenin, the syphilitic man was as hard as marx to understand, but he wrote more, so his over 40 volumes cant be read. Nor can someone else read them and talk about them, they might be marginalized by the larger masses who now want things at their level, not striving for higher levels.
Gramsci, he wrote nine volumes in prison… way way too complicated for contemporary minds
So you see… the assertion you are making was given to you by education which said that all learning had to be fun, or else it wasn’t needed to be learned.
The funny thing is that, that process insures that you will NEVER understand what they are doing to you, and what they are going to do to you.
Your reading requirements puts that understanding completely out of your reach.
When you figure out how to make long Russian philosophical texts fun to read and understand, let me know.
Baffle them with BS, they are too stupid to understand stuff long, complicated, and not edited properly to ease their troubled abilities.
And don’t worry about offending their intelligence, they have little of it as expressed by their own verbal requests for simple fun fair, or else.
All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. Thus its purely intellectual level will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach.
The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, . . . .
The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.
The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another.
Propaganda must be limited to a few simple themes and these must be represented again and again. Here, as in innumerable other cases, perseverance is the first and most important condition of success.
Aldous Huxley and the others were right.
That the public will want their slavery as long as we make the entrance to that comfortable and seem warm and have nice feelings.
Their freedom is cold hard, full of work, dreariness and constant striving upwards. They don’t want that, because that would mean having to work hard and taking responsibility for their lives. That they will have to work hard…
Yup I get it…
(by the way that paragraph above is from a now forbidden book by that Austrian guy we cant talk about any more since its so boring to do so)
Here is your problem guys.
I am handicapped (deafness), and was always blowing the curve, I am ugly, and have read hair, and am huge at 6’3” and 230lbs (if I am lucky).
As a child, being a red head (and male), I have always been the outlier who never belongs.
I have always been the easy target of abuse and manipulative people selecting randomly
And unlike red haired women, this doesn’t change at puberty, and you get some liking you.
Nope… unlike most humans, I don’t need other people or their approval.
Especially when they offer nothing in return.
Here is another uncomfortable truth…
Your not offering anything in return except the eyes of a nobody who wants to be catered to. generally that tends to make me think…
“oooh.. Someone who I don’t know, and doesn’t like me, makes demands, and threatens that they might actually not read me?”
Guess what… there are others that DO read me… and DO like what I am offering.
So in the now immortal words of tim curry from rocky horror when janet weiss told him what she would like…
“I didn’t make it for YOU!”
I made it for those who do have the interest, who can read complicated works, and who do understand that they control their own destinies, lives and have the ability to make choices, so don’t have to make demands of reality around them to be pleasing and narcissistically for them.
Hats of to youse… ïŠ
No. what frustrates me is the smarter people who want to know and are wasting their lives energies if they don’t have all the information!!! after all, discussing half of things and ignoring the other half, will not bring you to some fit conclusion and understanding. But I suspect that I just wrote too much for you to understand again.
Sigh..
Art,
you wrote, If I want you to learn the hard stuff, I have to make it palatable, or else!
Can you admit that is condescending?
Do you think you are above us?
Start from the premise that we are ALL smart, know quite a bit, have common sense…. (except liberals jk)
Once you do that you understand that we have filters as everyone should. Our brain applies the filter for a reason. We have to prioritize what we read.
Appeal to us as intelligent human beings with common sense. Make a quick point – don’t be offended if nobody commented on it. In time a few of us will start reading your comments again.
We are appealing to you because we are your friend. Don’t treat us like we are enemies.
Artfldgr: I must echo what Baklava said. I am trying to address you in a cordial, helpful manner — because you have a lot to say, of great value, which should reach a wider audience than it does.
But you’re not taking constructive criticism very well, I must say. (Perhaps I should have phrased my comments more elegantly, so as not to cause offense… but isn’t that the point that you are making? That we should pay attention to your ideas, and not your writing style?)
Let me add: you start out by claiming that I am unwilling to meet you halfway. Au contraire — I am meeting you halfway, by trying to explain why (perhaps) people were not reading what you wrote. By refusing to change your writing style, it seems to me that it is you who are unwilling to meet your (potential) readers halfway… and that’s a great pity.
Please note: I never said that you should censor your writing in any way. I never said that you must clean up your spelling, or shorten your posts, or anything else.
I said that, if you want more people to read what you write, you might want to take some of these steps. You are free to adopt any of them, all of them, or none of them, as you wish. And the rest of us are free to read you or ignore you, as we wish.
I have no objection to you rambling on at length. However, you then went and complained that no one was reading your ramblings. You can’t have it both ways, Artfldgr.
One more thought, and then I’ll leave you alone. You seem to think that proofreading, and editing for clarity and/or brevity, are unimportant… or, at any rate, significantly less important than saying what you want to say. If you do indeed believe that, I must disagree — and I’ll point out that I am far from alone in this. A high-school student can’t write the way you do; such a paper would get a C, regardless of content. A job applicant for any serious writing-related position, writing the way you do, would stand a strong chance of being rejected. That’s not my laziness or political bias; that’s the way people are.
If you want your words to be read, and appreciated, then you must be willing to meet your readers halfway. So far you have shown extreme unwillingness to do that. As I’ve said, this is a great pity… for you clearly have a great deal of important thoughts to share.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Scottie said: October 21st, 2009 at 9:28 pm
“They’d have to put in a fricking elevator in the middle of the wilderness!”
======================
Yep.
And at ski areas, the warming houses halfway up the mountain really ARE mandated to have wheelchair-accessible restrooms. Not sure if the wheelchair-bound are expected to come wheeling UP the mountain, or wheeling DOWN.
But, the law’s the law. (Sigh.)
All I want is a Women’s room for women! and a Men’s room for men.
Period.
No unisex.
solar water heaters are also energy savers, they help me save electricity bills from each month”-“
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