Friday News Toss
Okay, I know I'm a total slacker on the news lately. Partly, it's because I'm on a farm in Canada; and partly it's because I've been much happier not reading so much of it. Who needs crappy world events harshing their vibe all the time?
So, once again, I'm tossing to Rachel Maddow who recruited Sue Wicks to help illustrate a point about the Senate Republicans moving the goal post on health care reform.
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Comments [128]
here's the thing, kids
When folks start throwin hate and picking fights , it scares other readers away. And thats not what Velvetpark is for. Velvetpark has the goal of fostering community. The Enforcer made that public post as a warning to EVERYONE that that kind of bullshit won't be tolerated. There are plenty of ways to engage in debate and discussion and disagree and offer other opinions without being haters or jerkfaces.
k?
~*`~*~*~*~love and kisses and sparkles and puppydogs~*~*~*~*~
<3 Elizabeth
@elizabethkoke
Tex, thanks so much - you're
Tex, thanks so much - you're real sweet and you make me *blush* xx i appreciate you so much too xx i'm off to the farmer's market! have a day like you - beautiful xx
good morning! i hope all of
good morning! i hope all of you are great! i'm going to answer some ?'s you have about "the enforcer". basically it's like s/he said: (the enforcer is of indeterminate gender) - "ze" only comes out when necessary, and the bottom line is: please follow the guidelines when posting, yeah? i really appreciate all of your kind cooperation! thanks and have a beautiful (enforcer-free) day! xx
Good morning, Katina!
I do hope that your Sunday is a nice relaxing one! For the record, that avatar pic of you with the little devil be danged grin makes me want to 'behave'!
I appreciate the moderator remvoing the sellf proclaimed Ruler of the Internet. Just like any other child, some have to be scolded in order to get a point across. Besides, google is a wonderful tool when in doubt about someone's intent - didn't take ten seconds yesterday to figure out what was going on. There was absolutely no good coming of it. It also seems that we ourselves need a bit of scolding every now and again to keep us on the internet straight and narrow.....and a jolt of reality to remind us of who is in charge.....and remind us that we need to support and be kind to each other. Just a thought, but a reminder to take Midol may also be in order - Vp synching appears to be in full force!
You can't please everyone all of the time - especially a bunch of women - but when you care about them you do what you can to keep them safe....even on the internet.
Managing this and any socially involved site is a daunting task left to those not faint of heart. I appreciate y'all!
Nothing but love
Tex
Twitter Time @kdhales
I understand that we need a
I understand that we need a room monitor to make sure guidelines are followed and we can all be basically protected from trolls and the like. But when this occurs:
yeah, i just deleted yer other comments just cuz i didn't like em
just makes it a little more uncomfortable for me to post...much less WANT to post. Just makes me feel icky. I am not a prolific poster, but I have enjoyed cruisin' in every now and again, and for the most part I have felt pretty welcomed. Now I worry if I disagree with the general consensus, I might get flagged, deleted, or, as I put it on another thread, hit over the head with a virtual stick. Why not just delete the offensive stuff and help the rest of us maintain the peace instead of stirring the pot with the vulgar threats?
It is what it is.
hey bekcat, thanks so much
hey bekcat,
thanks so much for writing - i sure do appreciate your feedback. please feel absolutely free to post - it's just the prohibited stuff that i have to delete. if you get flagged, it doesn't mean you automatically get a warning, or your comment automatically gets deleted. people flag all the time, for who knows what reason, but, unless there is a violation - the comment stands, k? xx thank you SO MUCH for your help in keeping the peace xx
best wishes,
katina p.s. and i PROMISE i will never hit you over the head with anything! a stick, a stone,
virtual or otherwise xx
Anything??? But if it's in a
Anything??? But if it's in a different setting...with soft lighting...maybe I wouldn't complain. I can keep my options open is all I'm sayin'.
It is what it is.
hahahha! ok, in that case,
hahahha! ok, in that case, well sure xx we'll have a safe word - how 'bout "greenshirt"? ; )
enjoy your sunday! i'm back from the farmer's market, we just ate these mushrooms called "hen in the woods" sauted with garlic and some homemade pasta. big veggie salad and sourdough bread! yum! xx
love,
katina
Hi Katina Thanks for the
Hi Katina
Thanks for the explanation. I had originally missed the humor of "the enforcer" because I didn't see the original posts before I read that one. Anyhow, glad you're here....and that dinner sounds WONDERFUL. xoxo 
"Fight Prime Time. Read a Book"
peacekitty! YOU are
peacekitty! YOU are wonderful xx
best wishes,
katina
please try PM next time
best regards
Saving the world's women
Nicholas Kristof is truly a friend to women worldwide. Read this, get active, and be sure to thank him:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?_r=1&hp
ps if you have to create a login to read this, it's worth it!
Back to the future
I stumbled on an interesting NYTimes article from 1994 (there was a link from a current NYTimes graphic about healthcare through the years in the US) about the demise of the Clinton healthcare plan. To anyone who thinks we're getting bogged down now, or why does this have to be so damn complicated, I say read this article!
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/29/us/health-care-debate-what-went-wrong-...
Two things in particular sounded eerily familiar today:
"And newspapers and television failed to cut through the din and educate people, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. Instead, they merely elevated public skepticism.
'Everything the press did appeared to engender cynicism... When the news emphasized controversy, she said, 'That undermined the public sense that there was any agreement on what the problem is.'"
"You were always dealing with a fundamental underlying dynamic: the American people want change as long as it doesn't cost them too much or affect them too much personally. The problem wasn't Harry and Louise. The problem was us."
And the problem, apparently, is still US.
I was wondering if the gender
I was wondering if the gender politics experts here have an opinion about the womens' 800m World Championship winner who is now accused (on slim evidence) of being intersexed or somesuch. Since she is from South Africa, this accusation has racist overtones too:
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-semenyasvillage&prov=ap...
From what I've read...
... the athletes demanding that Caster Semenya's gender be determined to their satisfaction are claiming that Semenya can't possibly be a woman because she does not meet their European patriarchal standards of femininity, and because there is no way she could beat them unless she was a man.
Of course, Semenya has a birth certificate that says she was born female, not to mention parents who were present at her birth to confirm it, raised her, etc. The BBC even did an interview with an ex-boyfriend who confirmed she is female (he was polite enough not to go into how he knows this).
And, yeah, racial overtones are apparent in this debate, which is nothing new. Remember FloJo (Florence Griffith-Joyner)? White athletes repeatedly accused her of drug use after she won the 1988 Olympic Gold Medal. These accusations would resurface when she died in 1998. The rational by one athlete from Brazil? "She's black and from Los Angeles, we know how they are."
Whether enforcing a European-style patriarchal stereotypical standard of femininity, or just plain ugly racism (probably both), it's a disgusting revelation of just what kind of sore losers some athletes have turned into.
Thanks for the extra info
Thanks for the extra info CMW. I don't have a TV so I don't keep up with all the minute-by-minute sports news.
Any time
Growing up in the Boston area when I did, if you weren't a sports fan, specifically a fan of Boston teams, you were a potential vicitm, lol. No gender bias with that one, either.
Unfortunately, when it comes to women's sports, there is little coverage, so I have to rely heavily on more what I read than anything else. I don't follow men's sports at all, save for the Boston teams, and that just barely anymore. My favorites are track and field, soccer, and swimming events, things I was involved with as a kid.
This issue peaked my interest because of the whole FloJo issue, and the similarities, not to mention the gender issues (gee, why would I be interested in that, lol).
Growing up in the UK, I
Growing up in the UK, I followed soccer, but here in Canada they play the world cup matches at 2 in the morning (or some other useful time) in order to make room for NHL replays! Anyway, with no TV all I can do is catch the highlights on youtube, which is not quite the same, so I mostly gave up on following sports. I would rather be out doing sports, truth be told!
I'm kinda limited to radio coverage
Given the nature of my job (I drive all the time), catching sports on TV probably is a bad idea, lol. And, with little to no radio coverage of women's sports on the radio, I'm limited to newspapers and the internet.
And, yeah, it's much more fun to participate than spectate.
Let me see if I understand this
So basically, if you're intersex you are barred from competition. Period.
That's just too moronic to process. I'm increasingly sure that there are all kinds of differences going on in that particular continuum that in the past we were just unaware of. I bet if you tested the entire population of the planet, most folks would be astounded at what the number revealed.
Could we please get back to some good old fashioned common sense.
As I've learned over a lifetime of experiences...
... there are many things those who fail to adhere to patriarchal stereotypical gender expectations, even when such differences are an act of nature, are barred from doing.
It's just the reality we deal with.
Time after time
And time after time, individuals have been damaged by it. Its time for the majority to open their minds and grab a hold of of the truth. The real evaluation that needs to be made here is about reality testing.
As I see it, this is one more aspect of the general issue of the way the majority of modern societies deal with differences. We need to start truly embracing diversity before we kill off all of humanity trying to deny it.
Sorry if I'm ranting. I know this is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better. Just look at what is happening with relatively less incendiary issues. But I really think we just need to decide that it is time for a socio intellectual revolution that confronts all of those issues at once.
I agree
And it's not a rant when presented calmly and intelligently.
Unfortunately, this nation is drifting away from embracing its divirsity lately, and in a direction that is making me very uncomfortable.
look at this
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foekje_Dillema
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foekje_Dillema
the dutch version ofcourse tells you a lot more lol
Wow!
About the closest I've ever come to reading anything about someone like myself (my ratio is 1:1). Unfortunately, I only caught the English version (ASL is my second language out of early necessity).
Thanks, kinda cool to know I'm not the only one.
your welcome CMW
try use a translate tool for the Dutch one
there is some more interesting stuff to read in that
well the dutch you can see and translate but dont think asl works on here?
(we not even got a thumbs up smilly hand in here so go figure ? winks)
Kit! What happened to your
Kit! What happened to your cigar smoking, gun toting, puppy? I LOVED that avatar!
The worst are the comments
The worst are the comments under the article
-Do not follow me, I'M LOST-
I confess I was too chicken
I confess I was too chicken to read them, because I could guess the kinds of things probably said there.
Speaking of sports
Hey, I just came here to post this story too! I'm pretty pissed off about it--this is clearly NOT a case like the Eastern Euro men in the past who tried to pass (often with the help of their gov'ts) in order to win medals.
And I agree w/you about the racist overtones. Curious what some of the other athletes think--have you heard any comments?
a searing commentary
Peggy Noonan gets it; Rachel does not. But interesting that Rachel is trying to use visuals to illustrate a point, the way Glenn Beck does. (after she miserably failed in trying to use differing voices, the way Beck does...)
Noonan:
The president's health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of "he hasn't told us his plan." I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—"single payer," "public option," "insurance marketplace exchange." No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal. And when normal people don't know what the words mean, they don't say to themselves, "I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect."
read the rest here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020488440457436297134956334...
and Howard Dean, pls explain how this plan will be sustainable when the CBO says it can not.
Peggy writes gobbledygook
I wonder how Peggy would do making sense of the gobbledygook that insurance companies send to their members? Believe me it makes 'single payer' and 'public option' look like the ABCs.
And Peggy Noonan should know plenty about gobbledygook--she wrote (shit)loads of it for King Ronnie (Reagan) as one of his speechwriters.
This nation has NEVER EVER EVER had a health care policy. It has been ad hoc from day one. Trying to create one is hard--the Clintons found that out. So, yeah, everybody, let's not do healthcare reform because it's not easy....
Oh, and Annie, have you figured out what kind of pizza you want yet?
We already have single-payer...
... it's just reserved for the disabled and the anti-Obama protestors. It's called Medicare, which worked just fine until the GOP in 1994 began carving it up in order to force those who could afford to pay onto private "supplemental" insurance, and the rest onto Medicaid in those states that have it (called Medi-Medi). I was on Medi-Medi from 1989 until 1995 due to major health issues that made it impossible for me to work, and effected my ability to attend regular classes in college as well. Because of that plan, I was restored to good health, and was able to return to work full time, and have worked pretty much every day since.
Prior to that, I had Cigna, and later BCBS. Both denied any coverage for covered illnesses, equating them as a pre-existing condition related to "a genetic intersex condition" (the same crap I'm getting now). I nearly died before qualifying for Medi-Medi, at which point I got the treatments I needed to stay alive and get well.
Hence why I'm such a huge fan of rolling back the Reagan-Clinton-Bush Jr. tax cuts, and opening Medicare to all who want to buy in (at 75% less than what private insurance costs on average).
goin' to the source
I wonder how Peggy would do making sense of the gobbledygook that insurance companies send to their members?
Why don't you ask her? I'm sure her email is available online!
---------
thanks but no thanks - no pizza, no donuts for me! (and no Big Daddy forbidding me that stuff either!)
(ps - did not read that thread)
Sorry Annie...
... but I have a 189 IQ, understand most tax laws and legal language, and I have a hard time with insurance plan language, although I am becoming intimately familiar with what is considered "excluded" from coverage.
BTW, who is "Big Daddy?"
Time for a break
I've had a day to mull things over.
I think I'll follow K I T's lead and take a break for a while.
Sorry, but the more I see it, the more I get offended by the fact that time was taken to remove other personal attacks directed against others, and time was even taken to remove every other post by "Max" while the personal attack directed against me was allowed to remain.
Oh well, it's good to take a break every now and then.
Y'all know where to find me.
CAMW, while I certainly
CAMW, while I certainly understand how you feel, I wanted to point out that perhaps the most personal attack on this thread, against Rusty (or actually her mother), was NOT removed. I can't speak to the logic of which of Max's comments were deleted and which weren't but my take is his original comment was let stand as an 'example' which justified 'The Enforcer's' presence.
Take care, be well. :)
GoodBye
ok im sure this comment will get deleted, but befor i leave VP ( I have requested to delete my account)
I would like to say one last thing.
First of all to The Enforcer VP has made it clear how they want members to react and behave etc.
yet I find it strange to see that VP's own mod ( you The Enforcer ) is doing exactly the opposit.
From my point of view ( and I have shown your two post to friends to and they agree) the behavior your showing is childisch moodeish and sensuring. (and you your self use th F** word in your line etc)
My friends and I can come up with one respons and word to your post only and with all do respect that word is NUTS
May I suggest you reread your own posts and then compare it to what VP supposenly wants from us
I had a good time on VP and I wish you all (including The Enforcer) nothing but the best.
I will surely miss some of the members
but its clear to me that the time now has come for me to move on
have a great weeekend
GoodBye !
Kit,
If I were you, I would still be hanging around reading, so I hope you are. I'm not going to beg you to stay or anything; There have been times when I needed a break from all of this, too. I just wanted to point out that you may have missed a certain element of US humor in the translation.
While The Enforcer certainly was making the point that limits have been reached and it is time for folks to start taking things seriously, I read the tone as an attempt at a dominatrix/sheriff persona that many a lesbian finds both hot and comical.
Also, I did some Dutch to English translating last night. Thanks for the link in your message to CAMW. There definitely was more information in the Dutch link. One thing that I noticed right away is that Dutch and English do not translate as easily as Spanish and English or French and English. I had not realized the extent of the linguistic challenge you are overcoming here.
Anyway, please consider the possible loss of the humorous aspect of The Enforcer's post in the translation process. Then, of course, if you still feel you need to leave the scene...
Much love,
Tae
hi N2T
You know I have absolutely nothing against moderation.
But unlike you I 4 1 do not see the humor US or otherwhise in The Enforcer posts
Katina made a post to and the tone and words are much more different as is the message
(exept for the line / word (enforcer-free) day)
Katina states that :
it's just the prohibited stuff that i have to delete & unless there is a violation - the comment stands
now that to me makes sense
but The Enforcer ?
delete your ass when and where I feel the need.
I can kick your ass right off this site when you really piss me off... and it don't take much.
also she lets some one say ne because she happens to agree with something and there for gives a chance ( now if not agree ? etc)
Mess with me and I will fuck your shit up
now if we said stuff like that it would not be concidert to be humor etc
i just deleted yer other comments just cuz i didn't like em. So no one else start shit up or i'll drop the hatchet.
as long as VP keeps sending mixed messages then there is no point 4 me in staying on here
do i regret to have to go like this ? yes i do
i will sure miss some of the people on here and the interaction
but as much as vp or anyone else has there lines and feelings and principles
so do I
and for my own wellbeing i must & will stick to them
ill keep reading from the outside( unless they ban me from doing that)
to those who care i wish i could stay intouch other whise
LBDL im sorry hon i really hate to go and the begging to stay shure brakes my heart but unfortunatly it wont change the result and outcome
wishing all of you nothing but the best
have a reat weekend
To err is human
Kit, whilst I respect your point of view on this I would ask that you give the editors/moderator time to reassess how the Enforcer went over with the VP community, based on feedback from yourself and others, before suddenly abandoning ship. You've been happily playing in the Park for months, and are an integral part of this community, with a unique viewpoint.
Remember, 'to err is human...'
A body's got to do what a body's got to do.
Be well friend.
Much love,
Tae
K I T
I hate to beg....... but I will. Please don't go.
Geez I leave for a couple of
Geez I leave for a couple of days and all Hell breaks loose.
What's going on over here?
I agree that post from the "Editor" is a ridiculous, childish way to deal with unruly commenters. Why not just delete the comment with a note saying "This post is in violation of community guidelines has been deleted" Enough said.
In order for this community to grow it needs to be a positive, welcoming place for everyone.
Trying to put out the fire with comments about sex isn't solving the problem either, although they are funny.
Just sayin'.
Peace everyone!
"Fight Prime Time. Read a Book"
It was TFF!
I thought it was hilarious. Using the Editor to take on a new persona. I found it reminiscent of the best political theatre and not at all adolescent.
Now let's all go to nice drag show and think about Humpy Toppy Things!
"political theater", when
"political theater", when perpetrated by the establishment, is tyranny. only the "editor" can slap on that label "editor". and, i dunno, but i might have my "editor" badge removed for pointing this out to those in denial of the abuse of power that is that "editor's" remarks.
Political theatre is tyranny?
Some times the establishment just knows how to reestablish equilibrium.
Have you seen the commercial that says, You brought your fun? I did.
TFF
Tae, I agree, I found it highly amusing--clearly some others didn't. That's pretty much always the case with humor, isn't it? There's always a risk in it.
I dug the whole Katina-Good Cop, Enforcer-Bad Cop shtick, and the Bad Cop would have failed miserably if she had been weak-assed...
I love drag shows! That's
I love drag shows! That's what we need, more gay men around here to lighten things up and camp them up a bit.
"Fight Prime Time. Read a Book"
Kings for me
I tend to go for the Kings and general gender queer troupes, myself. But to each her own. I find that it does help to have a dose of humor with my serious, and just about anything is better with a little innuendo.