Favorite A2K Posters

Yup, panzade, we're coming to Fla. next week, meeting up with our favorite a2k posters, which are:[size=7]and we'll stalk you, mayhap[/size]?
Misti and Rae(our gracious hosts)
JoanneDorel(straight outta Texas)
Roger(akaRoger)
Urs53(my wife, other half of the "we")
and me, bigdice67

Florida 2004 Gathering

I would like to point out that the desire not to mention anyone from among a host of valuable members, lest one give offense by omission is not by any stretch of the most vivid imagination any exercise in "political correctness." Apart from the fact that political rectitude does not deal of specific personalities, but rather attempts to construct dogmatic speech and behavior guides--it is an ordinary trait of human socializing not to exclude when it can be avoided.

Blimey Cav, political correctness is being blamed for socially sensitive concerns about people's feelings now?

That is just normal sensitivity!!!!!

I do not post, generally, on these sorts of threads because I do not wish to hurt feelings - it is because me mummy taught me to be a good girl (and one or two things stuck) not because of political correctness.

Actually, it is prolly because I project me own sensitivities onto others, if I am really honest - but it still ain't political correctness! It is good old fashioned neurosis, and I am proud of it - my neuroses are what keeps me too worried to ever find the energy to go insane....

I didn't want to offend anyone by omission, that's the farthest from my mind, but I can see what you mean, setanta. I like the forum as a whole, and if I was to omit anyone, it would be as if I was saying " get out of my perfect world"!

Oh lovely bunny from Oz:

"That is just normal sensitivity!!!!! "

Cav, you and I are espousing abnormal insensitivity.

"I do not post, generally, on these sorts of threads because I do not wish to hurt feelings -"

Bunny holds its nose.

"it is because me mummy taught me to be a good girl (and one or two things stuck)"

Could you be more specific?

Actually this might be a cultural thingy. There is a huge struggle in the United States right now about political correctness or PC. Generally the sides are drawn up thusly: Conservatives, Republicans and right wingers in favor of banishing PCness and left wing bleeding heart liberals in favor of propagating it throught the court system. Perhaps in the land of Oz this is not an issue at the moment.
I for one am carefully balancing myself on this barbed wire fence.

Nah, if you read again panzade, the bunny seems to agree with us. I quite enjoyed that post actually.

As for the supposed struggle, it is the loudest voices that get the press, sadly, giving a very skewwed reality to what is really going on.

I should note one disturbing point in the bunny's post. She claims her "mummy" taught her how to be a good girl and a couple of things stuck...probably glue and bandages. If your 'mommy' had taught you how to be good, some of that PC crap may have rubbed off on you, or not. It's easier to slough off the skin of PC without the gross bandages.

Even if the bunny didn't agree with us, everything anyone posts is open to interperetation.

Actually Cav, I too enjoyed bunny's post. I merely tried to illuminate a cultural debate going on in these heah parts.

Hey Big Dice (ribald word play if I ever heard it)

Can't believe you'd sneak into Ef El A without letting me know.

smart decision

Actually - panzade may be rightish - our right try to rail against political correctness, too - and there are some general grumbles - but it does not seem to be quite the obsession it is in the USA. I deduce from this different experiences. I consider much of PC to be simply good manners - but I do note some excesses - particularly at times in academe - I consider the anti-PC movement an exact mirror image of what it criticises, though - and just as guilty of all that it rails against.

As for what me mummy taught me - hmmmmmmmm - I think the last vestiges of me manners is all that is left....oh, and I sing a lot too.

As to A2kers - I wuv you all!!!!! And, if I don't, you know who you are......you provoked me....

<sighs>

Well, I see that, predictably, the use of the word "political correctness" (or, in Setanta's wholly self-defined terminology, "political rectitude") is enough to offend some people's sensitivities ...

What I meant, obviously, was exactly what Panzade pointed out in his anecdote about the "honors roll". Suing a school over posting the honors roll because those who are not mentioned on it would be discriminated!? Thats just crazy. And a prime example of PC. (And no, I'm not a "right-winger").

Of course, "PC" is a word that has lived so many lives, and has been connected with so many different definitions, that we're really beyond the need to be lectured about what it "really" means. (Especially not by someone who's made up his own word for it ... heh.) Basically, its come to mean whatever the author wants it to mean, if anywhere halfway feasible ...

In my case, in what admittably was a bit of an associative jump, I meant PC as the kind of logic where one has learned to stifle one's expression of any normative judgement or even expression of feeling, out of the sheer fear to offend.

Up to a point, this is necessary of course: noone is waiting for anyone to dump his "normative expression of feeling" over lazy n***ers over us, for example.

But by the time people bite their tongue even when they want to say something positive, make a compliment, because of who might feel excluded/disadvantaged/slighted, its - imho in any case - a sad state of affairs ...

Thats like the values of the cubicled workfloor, where everyone always watches out what others may or may not say behind their back ... brrrrrr.

But then again, might just be my background.

Oh, for at least a partial rehabilitation of honest-to-god bluntness!

... and before you knew where you were they, he ran off ...

The one poster who consistently makes me have to wash my monitor is Equus. The guy is hilarious.

Not wanting to get into too much of a debate, but doing it anyway - and please bear in mind that I do not consider posting names in a thread such as this any kind of badness or wrongness, just something I do not generally choose to do meself - I think there is a big difference between saying who you like (though some people have given solid forum related reasons why - and I think that very reasonable) and an honour roll.

An honour roll is about achievement - I agree that suing about such a thing is ridiculous - I am finding it difficult to link such behaviour to what I know of political correctness, once again suggesting either ignorance on my part, or somewhat differing cultural contexts - like, we haven't quite got to the dizzying heights of vexatious suing that it seems the states has.

However, once again, before political correctness was heard in the land, I was taught to try not to exclude folk. If simple manners, whether they be reasonable or ridiculous, (I was also taught a lot of other things as manners which I have since jettisoned - like knives and forks - just kiddin') are to be called political correctness and used as evidence of how bad it is, then we might as well stop using the term - it has become so universal as to be meaningless.

Have you changed the baby's political correctness yet? The room is smelling of political correctness, and the baby will get a sore bum!

Oh my! The weather is politically incorrect today - remember to take your umbrella!

I'm sorry - I believe this apple which I bought yesterday is politically incorrect! See, there is a worm in it?

Actually, I wonder if my feelings about this were honed on Abuzz, where such threads were often opened, and were rather like a primary school popularity contest - they really did end up being a bit 'orrid for some - mebbe a more cliqueish environment? I remember a thread where this was discussed at length - I think I started the discussion - but I am prolly being grandiloquent again - or mebbe just grandiose...

na just a wabbit

All I'm gonna say is I think everybody responding to or mentioned on this thread so far is among my favorites, and that doesn't even come anywhere near to filling out the list.

Yeah.

You just triggered a continuation of my associative, highly digressive rant. Heh. Apologies beforehand for hijacking the thread. :wink:

The thing is - we don't, actually - or most of us don't, anyway - like everyone equally. And thats quite OK.

Political correctness, as I see it, originally was a much-needed safeguard - against the majority of society (or those in power, in any case) ganging up on a minority, and institutionalising its collective dislike through both structural discrimination and day-to-day putdowns. Fine.

So it wasnt, imho, actually about mere "good manners", but about fighting the perpetuation of discrimination through social discourse - it was, indeed, "political". Good thing, too.

But - in my personal view, at least - PC has long since been hijacked by the ... <ahem> ... hypocritical, tight-arsed bourgeois crowd. <big grin - heehee - so much for tact ! :wink: >.

Many of the instances now signalled as PC are no longer about freeing the suppressed from putdowns, but about a puritanical sense of "shh - you're not supposed to talk of such things / say such words!". And thus, libraries are starting to puritanically get "cleansed" from any books that might for any reason offend anyone - coarse language, mentions of sex, whatever.

Increasingly - in my perception - this specific kind of PC targets any representation of people that does not confirm to how things should be. I read about people who tried to ban a childrens book because it featured only poor black kids. They said it would confirm prejudices. Never mind that the story took place last century, and, well, most black kids were poor back then. The logic here was: we should teach our children how the world should be, because then they'll act accordingly later. Ergo, we should protect them from representations of how things really are (or were), if that is in conflict with the ideal.

(Interestingly, this logic mirrors exactly that of the Socialist-Realist ethics of Soviet times.)

I happen to fiercely disagree with that logic. As I argued at length elsewhere, I submit that this logic actually disadvantages those who are truly discriminated even in today's society, because it aims to airbrush the offensive elements from reality, rather than tackle them - and in fact, by making them invisible, makes it harder to tackle them.

Anyway. Thats as wide as my digressive arc gets - I can't get any more off-topic than that. What I want to get back to before I sign off is this point about "liking everyone". We don't. We like some people more than others. And thats quite OK.

My granma's brother doesnt like foreigners. Thats his misfortune - he's the one missing out. And he shouldnt dare dis any of my friends if they ever happen to be around. But in general, I'd rather have him say his mind truthfully, and then say that I disagree, than that he pretends like he's all perfectly reasonable, while still sneakily acting on all kinds of prejudices. Again, might be my background.

We shouldnt go out of our way to offend people, of course. I wouldnt post on a thread about "people you like least". (Well, probably not <grins>.) But we are also under no obligation to uphold the stifling, sanitized myth of Virgin Mary-like pure universal love, either. Its perfectly OK to single people out - for praise. If it's on an individual basis, with an explanation of why you like someone so much - why not? I, for one, always enjoy reading about who people like for what reason - I even find it moving, at times. Yeh, also if I'm not mentioned <giggles>.

Get my drift?

Dlowan, yes, I remember those discussions, and have similar reservations. I liked nimh's and Craven's thoughtful and thorough lists. And nimh's mention made me turn quite pink. Happily pink.

While I'll abstain this time -- I recently gave one of these lists a whirl, something about A2Kers that make me laugh, and I thought I was all thorough but immediately I was bonking myself on the forehead and saying, "Doy, how could I forget ___?" -- nimh and Craven would most definitely be on the list. And their thoughtfulness and thoroughness is a big part of why.