Posts by Heather Gaye
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At least a couple of the Crusaders will need to be zombies.
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Kyhwana,
In the Sunday piece, the journalist referred to Michael as Arie's partner, but Michael himself referred to Arie as his friend.
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Hard News: A Capital Idea?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
would someone come up with a simple answer for this bear of little brain why it is “fair” when that asset is the “family home”? Come on, a haiku would do.
I presume it concedes the need for a roof over your head. If you own a family home and want to sell, you’ll be needing another family home quick-smart (primary examples are either looking for a larger one, or one in another city). All other things being equal, if you have to pay tax on the capital gain, you no longer have the full value of a (new) house. I think that's reasonable.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
It’s like there’s an initial window of on-topic discussion, but after that window has shut, you cannot talk on that subject any more. I mean, you can post, but no one will really respond because they’ve all naturally moved on to the in-group chat and so your post is kind of off-topic.
There are two things I've noticed:
1 The community's gotten really big. Popular threads get a *lot* of comments in a very short time, so the conversation moves really fast. I imagine that's common to large online communities.
2 Often trolls or flame wars are dealt with by derailing into whimsy, which a smaller circle will then run with. I quite like that, & it's not really something I've seen on other forums. Frustrating if you've got a point to make, but generally a fun way to draw a line under a contentious thread. -
Flipping heck, when I started writing that post, I was still on page 4.
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Hard News: #NetHui: it's all about you, in reply to Danielle,
Terminology note: I think ‘mansplaining’ and ‘patronising’ actually *do* have slightly different meanings, in that the former implies a specific ‘barging blindly into the conversation to immediately pontificate about an issue which everyone has been discussing for months or years already’
Wasn't there another thread here than mentioned mansplaining a short while back? Might've a link to elsewhere, but I had an "ooohhh" moment when someone expressly defined it as speaking from the platform of male privilege. The question was about whether women could be guilty of "mansplaining" and the conclusion was that technically not really, but they could be guilty of whitesplaining or richsplaining or whatever, depending on their circumstances.
So...yeah, requires the presence of a faulty argument, and doesn't even necessarily apply when someone's being merely patronising.re: women joining in, there was a good conversation here about that a while back, I think around the time (possibly just before) Emma started writing for PA. Deborah mentioned a concept I liked a lot called the "politics of presence". Based on nowt more than my gut, I think female engagement on PA has definitely been on the rise for a while.
...and from Emma, way back on page 1...
I always assume that all my conversations that aren't one on one involve members of both genders.
both genders?
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Hard News: Bishop Brian: It's worse than…, in reply to Susannah Shepherd,
I got the impression many in the church don’t count anything pre-Knox as actually Christian…
Ha, interesting, I recall some churches I attending insisting same about the entire Presbyterian church (Knox college especially singled out for its allegedly liberal agenda). Wholly concur with your opinion on employee wages, btw.
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Hard News: Bishop Brian: It's worse than…, in reply to recordari,
Visually effective in what sense?
To be fair, the Sallies wear not only black, but they wear army uniforms. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to want to convey an organised and united front by choosing a uniform – black, white or orange, whatever, without having people attribute designs of actual guerilla warfare. I think the problem with the march was less about the black shirts and more that church members are so… vehement.
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Hard News: Bishop Brian: It's worse than…, in reply to Heather Gaye,
…oh, also, a lot has to be said for the politics of association. When all the people you hang out with believe the same things, those things really become self-evident. Modern Christian denominations can be especially bad in this regard, because they're explicitly warned to avoid “worldly influence” that might lead them astray (see above about evangelicals engaging non-christians).
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Hard News: Bishop Brian: It's worse than…, in reply to Cecelia,
Why would a thoughtful intelligent person fall for Tamaki’s personality cult
...just for clarification it was the pastor that left that was the intelligent one, reacting against the bish's whole covenant debacle recently.
& speaking as someone who regularly got asked "how can a supposedly intelligent person such as yourself be a crazy pentecostal?", faith falls outside the bounds of science, so it's possible for the two to cohabit. I could argue that I was conditioned into believing from a young age, but given that my brother suffered no such effect, I think some people are just predisposed. I read a book called The Happiness Hypothesis that made a very compelling case for the utter, stunning irrationality and hypocrisy of all humans in their thought processes (not in a bad way) - basically that even the most logical, objective human goes through ridiculous mental gymnastics that don't necessarily have any basis in the real world or even logic, in order to make sense of themselves and the world. Religion is just a tiny facet of the lies we tell ourselves. For what it's worth I've no idea what to believe now, but still tend toward the existence of some kind of super-natural. (shrug)
Why Sarah Palin and Donald Trump? How could the latter believe that Obama lacked an American birth certificate? I suppose my beliefs and values are as deeply embedded as theirs are … but …
Also, there really should be a distinction between people that place unquestioning faith in someone or something (and I actually believe there are atheists that fall into that category), even despite evidence to the contrary - and starting with a premise one doesn't fully understand & then constantly hunting for clarification (not necessarily proof) of same. The thing that finally convinced me that God and the universe wasn't necessarily as I saw it, was acknowledging that there are people who have beliefs that conflict wholly with my own, but they believe them just as strongly. That's when the "well, I Just Know" started to fall apart for me.