gdp's Comments

Crasstalk : Middle of the Week Open Thread

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 14:39:43 +0000

This is my new favorite thing ever.

Crasstalk : Weekend Open Thread

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:48:57 +0000

A change in diet will do that as will exercise. Both, of course, also lead to weight loss.

Crasstalk : Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 18:29:17 +0000

Oh don't get me wrong. I am too. But there are idiots out there who will scream and rant and rave about terminations post 20 weeks as "horrible" and "infanticide" and blah, blah, blah, because they don't wish to admit that they have to go even later into a pregnancy to enjoin their precious sentimentality of the fetus as "baby" to that of the larger population. But it's the "not past 20/24/26 weeks" crowd that truly enrages me the most. I want to go medieval on their asses. These "people" would inflict what amounts to their PERSONAL OPINION (that a 20 week fetus is the same as a born infant) onto women in the one of the most horrific of personal medical crises. These assholes actually believe that these are largely cases of election because - when visiting more hell on someone already in hell, why should they EVER educate themselves as to the process of a pregnancy and all that CAN go wrong? If there is a metaphysical hell, it has a special spot for those people.

Crasstalk : Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 18:23:55 +0000

Oh, I can speak to a much larger sample size and even personal experience when it comes to the fantasy of "submission" that isn't really true submission. I grew up in a hella closed-minded area of Brooklyn. Though raised Lutheran, I attended a Jesuit uni for undergrad, also still in NYC. Both environments were populated with the Personal Piety Obsessors breed of metro-area Catholic. The misogyny in these environments was Grade A mint style. Rabidly anti-choice males who saw sex as a "conquest" and as the right of male passage. Equally rabidly anti-choice females who were brain battered out of controlling their own sexuality. Nothing, I mean NOTHING frightened these crowd more than a sexually assertive female who had sex - gasp! - because she WANTED to. And nearly all of the women I knew from these circles equated male control with their own desirability. It allowed them to feel SOMETHING, because if engaged autonomously meant she was going straight to hell. Male domination gave them an excuse to be sexual because they were merely caving to HIS desires. And don't even get me started on the unspoken obsession with gay male erotica fiction (like "Interview with a Vampire"). It allowed these women to objectify males sexually, but ONLY when they could identify with a fictional male character. He was male, so it was OK for him to aggressively sexually pursue other males. And when they were in his head, it was OK for them. PS. Ann Rice herself was raised in that Personal Piety Obsession type of religion. (In her case, also Catholicism).

Crasstalk : Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 17:44:26 +0000

I'm in make-up final hell this week, y'all. Alternative Views will return next week. Sorry!

Crasstalk : Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 17:43:25 +0000

Isn't Teeny already on break? Or no?

Crasstalk : Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 17:42:49 +0000

I loathe this man. Loathe him.

Crasstalk : Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 17:39:57 +0000

It's a compelling take that is very clear to you IF, and only if, you possess empowerment in the first place. The women to whom "50 Shades" and its R-rated precursor, "Twilight", most strongly appeal are from environments in which female empowerment is strongly discouraged, largely because their sexuality is repressed. Listen, you can't be focused on all that stuff she's encouraging without ALSO being in total charge of your own sexuality. The two walk hand-in-hand. You either accept, own and engage in a sex life of your own choosing, which will most likely mean that it won't be exclusive to one man - or you focus entirely on getting a committed relationship so that you can be sexual at all. Sexual awakening doesn't happen to normal people at age 30. It happens much younger than that. However, trying to make a committed relationship work when you're in your late teens or early 20s takes a fuckload of dedication because the person with whom you're trying to make this work is presumably (and preferably) in the same age group. Focus on your career and education at that time and you may have to have your own schedule that doesn't work with his or may even have to move to different locations! You can't have sex under those conditions because - GASP! - it won't be with the same guy!!! I realized this after seeing just who among the women I knew was into this whole Stalker Love shit. I realized that it isn't about laziness as much as it's about how much they had their sexuality pounded out of them, especially when they were raised to marry the first guy who asked.

Crasstalk : Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 17:29:27 +0000

They appeal to the masses because the MASSES don't respect female autonomy. Anti-choice hysteria is the one bigotry they'll still loudly support because it has a whitewashed appeal to sentimentality; the "baby". Get anyone of those fuckers into a conversation about how they're forcing their personal preferences onto couples who are facing a heartbreaking medical tragedy when they have to elect a late D&C because of fetal abnormality or threat to the woman's life from Pre-E or a fetal status that is incompatible with life once outside the womb and suddenly these assholes are ALL about the "exceptions". They're about the "exceptions" in the majority of cases of late second trimester D&C's because they suddenly realized that someone IMPORTANT and IN CHARGE is involved: the man. That's when they're all about their "compassion" and how they'll "allow it". See, when it was about punishing those lascivious sluts who "won't accept responsibility" for the crime of having had sexual intercourse they didn't pre-approve, then they want them to Pay, pay, PAY!!!!!!! How DARE you murder an infaaaaaaant!!!! Remind them that the women they WANT to punish would have had their terminations long before the second trimester and they don't have an answer. They truly are disgusting in their hatred.

Crasstalk : Topless Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 16:32:37 +0000

Well, that rocked. Loved the close up on her bosom. LOL

Crasstalk : Topless Tuesday Open Thread

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 16:31:42 +0000

Crasstalk : Here We Go Again Open Thread

Mon, 9 Feb 2015 22:26:03 +0000

OK, so I went and read up more on the FULL context of the entire Grammys presentation. In the full context, it became clear to me that Kanye's action of stage storming was in compliment to the other public statements made. I apologize for having commented without knowing that context. I knew about his actions and his words (on stage). My comment wasn't in reference to Kanye West's opinions about the Grammys entire. It was in reference to an action I originally perceived to be AS random as some of his previous attention grabbing actions. However, I gotta say; Look, I realize I've been gone a while, but, I thought that my views were trusted a little bit more than that. In full context of both this conversation and the entire Grammys presentation, I can see how easily anyone would have read insensitivity into it. But, I thought I had enough of a history here that anything like that could have been read as unusual coming from me. Instead, it seems my commentary was read as a mere continuation of some common thread from me. But it ISN'T a common thread from me. Is it too much to ask that the degree of heated opposition be toned down when I misunderstood a context? Am I wrong about the reputation of my typical opinion here? Then again, I also recalled that one of my more common experiences here was that, all too often, I was confused with another regular participant - one whose views differ greatly from my own - possibly because our lifestyles are (inaccurately) considered similar.

Crasstalk : Weekend Open Thread

Mon, 9 Feb 2015 03:19:55 +0000

I've heard tell of the panic that ensues in the South when frozen water vapor particles fall from the sky. It's like plague, apparently. <img src="http://i61.tinypic.com/2zrl2es.jpg">

Crasstalk : Weekend Open Thread

Mon, 9 Feb 2015 03:03:20 +0000

Oh. <img src="http://i61.tinypic.com/20k7hoh.jpg">

Crasstalk : Weekend Open Thread

Mon, 9 Feb 2015 01:58:59 +0000

Ohhhhhh, Number 3 is ALL sorts of special. ALL.SORTS. Just near and dear to my heart. Gotta love those half-assed arguments from people who learned about economics from "Atlas Shrugged". These are the same people who consider Keynes to be a socialist.

Crasstalk : Weekend Open Thread

Mon, 9 Feb 2015 01:55:26 +0000

Could you be persuaded to write a post on it? I was planning on featuring it as a special review of Alternative Views, but I'd love to also read your thoughts on it.

Crasstalk : Weekend Open Thread

Mon, 9 Feb 2015 01:52:58 +0000

If you wish to use their usual epithet of "baby murderers", be my guest - and prove my point. Because, I'm not sure who, in their right mind, would consider a position that seeks to protect the individual patient's CHOICE from external interference as "intolerant" or hateful unless you're arguing that the fetus is a human being of equal biological and legal standing. You don't have medical science on your side for that argument. You don't have the Bible on your side for that argument. Therefore, what IS your basis for demanding that your personal preference be made into law that dictates medical choices for other women? That these women are too stupid to see the superiority of your sentiment? That they're murderers of a entity that your personal preference deems a human being? That you have a personal preference to participate in a religious organization - currently headquartered in a foreign nation and founded nearly 1800 years before the US Constitution was drafted - as reason enough to prevent select medical procedures on a pregnant woman? Either way you slice it, it's still based in reducing the woman to something less than a legal human, therefore subject to the whims of YOUR personal preferences. And on this, you're right, I will not tolerate this as a valid point of view. I see no moral nor philosophical compulsion to tolerate it at all.

Crasstalk : 2015 State of the Union Open Thread

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 04:12:39 +0000

Even with guaranteed benefits?? Oh crap.

Crasstalk : 2015 State of the Union Open Thread

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 04:01:29 +0000

Wait. Was there a combat requirement for it? Oh no, no, no. Don't tell me that. Oh nonononono. Oh no. You're speaking of discriminatory admissions policies. Oh duh...

Crasstalk : 2015 State of the Union Open Thread

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 03:54:06 +0000

OMG. I forgot how fucking fun this place is. And what a night for a reunion: when POTUS is kicking Teapublican booty.