House of Reps. member Giffords shot in Arizona today

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:
Everyone on God's green earth has said something like "I could kill him," or "I wish he would drop dead."

When you say such things, (and if you are honest, you will admit you do), do you look around for the possible lunatic who might take you seriously?

Of course you don't and if you argue otherwise you are a liar.

1. not since I was in my teens

2. once I started working with vulnerable children and adults I did start paying very very close attention to exactly what I said in their presence. Pretty soon I realized it was just easier to not say stupid things that I didn't mean like "I wish he was dead". So, no, I don't say things like that.

3. not lying.

In real life, you aren't even going to find me making judgmental comments that I might make here. I've learned that you never know what someone might make of a random, unmeant, comment.

There is a huge difference between saying certain things, from a position of authority, to children and making general comments.

I doubt Lash says everything that comes into her mind in front of her students, but if she says "I really can't stand Fox news." and one of her students shoots Roger Ailes are you going to hold her responsible?

Context and perspective...please.

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@plainoldme,

Gads that I might possibly agree partly in concept with h2o man, but the surgeons have been clearly careful about what they say, and I've thought on reading a few times that the bullet might not have gotten very deep in some areas. They did say the cleaned out/debraded (or some word like that) brain tissue, but we don't know how much. The bullet might have had some of its trajectory just under the skull (between entry and exit, which are by definition skull penetration). Removing the skull portion makes sense whatever the trajectory - I think.

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@plainoldme,

The speech writer is probably familiar with the phrase. Like ossobucco, I didn't know what it meant, largely because I never heard it before, although I am familiar with the accusation that the phrase represents.

I remember in the 60s when it was chi-chi (or hip) to sprinkle Yiddish phrases in one's speech. All the standup comedians seemed to be Jewish. The intellectuals were Jewish. Coming of age in that sort of atmosphere, it is not surprising that I never heard the phrase.

However, the speech writer, in addition to knowing the meaning of the phrase, is probably someone with a cunning term of mind. The words sound dramatic and that is why he told marionette palin to use them.

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@plainoldme,

I'm the one who brought that up.
I didn't know the term until I read about it in the last day or so. I certainly knew jews were scapegoats in horrific ways, but not that exact term. (I don't capitalize catholics however well taught I was, either. I mostly skip a lot of capitalizing.)

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@ossobuco,

Part of the skull was removed to allow for the swelling of the injured brain and to keep the swollen tissue from being compressed against the skull. had the bullet not ridden (for lack of a better word) under the skull -- in other words, were it a flesh wound -- it wouldn't seem logical that the brain would swell unless it did so in reaction to the force of the bullet on the exterior of the skull, as in a concussion.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

There is a huge difference between saying certain things, from a position of authority, to children and making general comments.

That is not how I live. I work very hard to maintain consistency, so I don't have to think about the audience. If I wouldn't say things in front of one group of people, I'm unlikely to say it in another context. It makes things much easier.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

I doubt Lash says everything that comes into her mind in front of her students, but if she says "I really can't stand Fox news." and one of her students shoots Roger Ailes are you going to hold her responsible?

To some degree at least.

Certainly, if I had a student in one of her classes and they reported a comment like that, I'd be at the school in a flash. I expect instructors to be quite neutral. I hold instructors, including myself when I am in that role, to a very high standard.

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@plainoldme,

I disagree. I don't remember all the layers of the brain, which alas I once knew, and I did say it affected some tissue. Remember the british actress? Her brain had basically bounced against the skull, a kind of concussion, with resultant bleeding. Skull removal, temp or otherwise, is something I take as an obvious preventative. We don't know the trajectory - but some quotes have made me think it might not be all that deep except for the place they cleaned out.
This is my curiosity speaking, I don't mean to belabor the matter.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Good grief but some people are asses!

Sanctimonious twits like Aidan are hardly policing their every day speech and please don't try to suggest that you are.

Everyone on God's green earth has said something like "I could kill him," or "I wish he would drop dead."

When you say such things, (and if you are honest, you will admit you do), do you look around for the possible lunatic who might take you seriously?

Of course you don't and if you argue otherwise you are a liar.

Madmen are triggered by all sorts of obscure and obtuse stimuli. The thought that we might be able to anticipate what they choose as a foundation for mass murder is simply ridiculous.

Good lord will you sanctimonious fools go huddle at a coffee house and spare the rest of us your nonsense?

Well, this is just interesting. No, really - it is really fascinating to me that you seem to really believe that everyone alive has said things like "I wish he were dead", or "I could kill him".

Sometimes I think of myself as a pretty sharp judge of human nature. I have even said things to my wife like, "If you would just be honest, you will admit that you feel this way." And I have really, really hated it when I have just been wrong. Damn! I actually can't know with certainty what someone else thinks and feels without being that person.

But here you are Finn, calling people sanctimonious fools and liars if they don't admit to doing something you just know they do, based on ... what?

Here's the thing. I have something... some reason I can't really explain that I can't even say "I hope he dies" aloud about someone I actually would have to stifle a little surge of relief at hearing the news of their demise. I came very close to saying it when I heard about Dick Cheney's latest surgery, but NOT EVEN ABOUT SOMEONE I REALLY THINK OF AS DOING THE WORLD A FAVOR BY LEAVING would I allow myself to say that. If I even hear someone else say something like "I hope he dies", for some reason (old archaic religious programming? some childhood story about curses and karma? dunno) I am prone to say something like "don't say that".

So Finn, you probably won't admit that you can't know what you pretend to, but you are just plain wrong. You don't know what everyone says or doesn't say. Maybe everyone you have ever met or grown up with would say those things; or maybe you're just projecting your own insides on everyone else. But you are just wrong.

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@snood,

snood wrote:

Well, this is just interesting. No, really - it is really fascinating to me that you seem to really believe that everyone alive has said things like "I wish he were dead", or "I could kill him".

What never !!?? ... Well, hardly ever !

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

snood wrote:

Well, this is just interesting. No, really - it is really fascinating to me that you seem to really believe that everyone alive has said things like "I wish he were dead", or "I could kill him".

What never !!?? ... Well, hardly ever !

Dude, I can honestly say I haven't said that in all the time I've been a sober and (relatively) sane adult. About 20 years. Before that, I can't swear to...

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@ossobuco,

Yes, osso, because you are actually agreeing with me but thinking you are disagreeing.

Do you mean Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave's daughter?

Skull removal is a rather new procedure . . . of course, the way I remember what I read or hear, I could have heard it a decade ago and thought it was recent . . . but, I am just guessing that the amount of damage sustained was due to the bullet passing through the brain, which is how it was described.

BTW, anyone remember George Clooney's bullet speech in the movie Three Kings?

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I would have been a whole lot more impressed with Obama today if he had had the balls to point out that this murder spree was not so far as we know the result of heated political discourse, but was rather the result of a nut job who never got the help he needed. The way I read his comments Obama is leaving open that this happening had something to do with discourse, if Obama had made clear that he was talking about the post shooting debate it would be much easier to take him seriously.

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@snood,

I have to say - and no reflection on you personally - that I do not believe that anyone who has made it to adulthood hasn't uttered some wish for some kind of mayhem to happen to someone else - either in traffic, in politics, in argument, or under their breath in some situation. I don't think people actually mean it when they say it - but we all do it. Frankly, I bet these pages likely yield more than one instance of at least 50% of us... Don't you?

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@ehBeth,

But, some vulnerable person may see what you say here and act on it.

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Lash,
"but we all do it". How do you know this? I did include the caveat that I can only speak for my sober time - 19 years, 3 months, 19 days. Before then, I probably did.

Maybe everyone doesn't think like you think they do.

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@ehBeth,

Good grief, Beth. I'm really surprised by your opinion.

Code switching is almost universal. People tend to shift language, content and delivery based on who they're around. It's incredibly common and not thought to be a negative thing.

I can't imagine a person expressing the identical delivery and content to people at work, their children and their lover. That's sort of mind boggling.

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@snood,

Well, ok. You did it - just a long time ago.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

Yes, osso, because you are actually agreeing with me but thinking you are disagreeing.

Do you mean Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave's daughter?

Skull removal is a rather new procedure . . . of course, the way I remember what I read or hear, I could have heard it a decade ago and thought it was recent . . . but, I am just guessing that the amount of damage sustained was due to the bullet passing through the brain, which is how it was described.

BTW, anyone remember George Clooney's bullet speech in the movie Three Kings?

I think thay probably don't remove the whole skull, Plain;
most likely just part of it.

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@snood,

btw, happy for you re 19years, 3 months and 19 days!

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House of Reps. member Giffords shot in Arizona today

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