Posts by Kracklite
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Islander,
I have many fossils – so joyous to even contemplate living exemplars
I have only a little Phacops myself, but it's quite beautiful. Horseshoe Crabs are supposed to be their closest living relatives, but with so much of the seafloor unexplored, it's not unreasonable to hope that some deep-water species might still exist...
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Islander,
Had clinical depression myself due to a probable propensity and some specific circumstances, but I never seriously contemplated suicide as a direct result… but I can understand people who might. Someone with a severe disorder might be driven to it by direct effect, but someone who feels themselves at their wit’s end due to a concatenation of circumstance, especially when as a teenager they might not have the emotional experience to stabilise themselves.
Some people who do it might do so out of sheer exhaustion. My depression was like riding a bicycle with bent handlebars – I could, with effort, keep it straight on its path, but that effort had to be constant, and it was profoundly exhausting. Someone without help or medication might have simply been worn out. I had my networks and strategies and I didn’t wear out.
Parents and whanau can’t take the blame or the punishment for a child’s suicide – they’re ultimately not the only influence on someone not fully equipped to deal with life yet. Flavell’s “solution” would effectively torture the bereaved all the more who would be feeling enough – undeserved – guilt.
Now, I see, he’s “standing by” what he said, because it was supposed to foster debate or whatever. Oh what a coward. I am really sick of people who say something bloody stupid and cruel because some idiot like Lhaws or whoever will chirp in and say, “it needs to be said” or “we’re all thinking that”.
The purpose of public discourse, I thought, was to think before speaking, and then speak in the hope that it might be useful.
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Anyway, to unthreadjack…
Flavell. Good God, Clapton, Cthulhu, Leto Atreides II and You-Know-It-Hates-Being-Called-That for good measure. He is positively mediaeval.
An “authority” he quotes in support of his position argues that the life of an individual belongs to their whanau or community, not themselves, so that to end it is a crime against the commons. It’s a point I can understand in the sense that many cultures define identity according to one’s bonds, not a single, core, nucleus, atom or what have you of sentience. However, if that is the case, effectively punishing a family for the suicide of one of it’s members cripples them, it interrupts their own grieving permanently and makes it impossible for them to heal as a whole. I can’t understand or respect a man who thinks that it is more important to punish than to heal.
In any case, people attempt suicide for so many reasons. People I have known have attempted (or succeeded) out of despair, those who have failed have thankfully transformed their lives… another I’ve known, with Borderline Personality Disorder, uses regular half-hearted but theatrically-arranged and publicised attempts to emotionally blackmail people around her (notes are useless because they’re read too late – TXT someone to get a quicker, more panicked response!) and I have had to withdraw my empathy because she feeds on the pain she causes other people.
There are awful people who use others’ empathy, but people like Flavell, who seem to have none, for anyone, are despicable.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Russell Brown,
Pokie machines aren't ironic enough to be fun.
Trolls show up thinking that they can manipulate other people, but quickly make it clear that they are open to manipulation themselves, which makes them fair game, as far as I'm concerned (I noticed that "Son of Little P" really didn't like to see someone [moi] suggest that he thought of himself as a "victim", for example, so...).
James, I must admit, fascinated me for a while, since he seemed to be an example of a consciousness stripped down to its bare minimum, resorting endlessly to defaults that had worked in adolescence, but were out of touch with the adult, fully-sentient world. Ultimately though, I'd rather have an aquarium with a coelecanth or a trilobite - such living fossils (fingers crossed for the rediscovery of the latter) would have real grandeur (I've been reading too much Peter Watts - can you tell?).
The game though, is trivial, and my interest in any troll ephemeral and I promise not to make a habit of troll-baiting here. One of the things I really like about this forum is the fact that it doesn't seem to have to try hard to keep them at bay - probably because it's routinely made obvious that any one of the regulars are unaffected by them and could make mincemeat of them anyway.
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Sacha,
Purely for my own entertainment. James, like most trolls, is absolutely covered in big shiny flashy buttons that I just can't resist pushing.
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I took my handle here because I - rather self-deprecatingly perhaps - identify with the protagonist of that name in the Peter Greenaway film, The Belly of an Architect. I've another name elsewhere, "Rhinocrates" almost by accident due to registering using a different email address and having a fondness for Vivian Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. I try to be consistent, but I think Rhinocrates is increasingly representing my sillier side and Kracklite my more serious side.
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... annnnd, according to Wikipedia:
The Rt Hon Prof The Lord Winston FMedSci FRSA FRCP FRCOG FIBiol FREng(Hon)
Or:
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Russell Brown,
I seem to remember a Blimpish figure from the late Cold War being referred to as General Sir John Hackett, so that might be appropriate… Hmmm.
It may be that an actual peerage (as opposed to a knighthood) renders all other titles redundant in ceremonial use (as Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms are dropped), so he’s Lord Winston ( followed by Wibbleonian Professor of Performing Stunt Moustachery, Licensed Electrician etc) in any matter of state, Professor Winston when in an academic context, or Lord Winston again according to the Rule of Cool.
Just guessing.
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Some of us have to represent other persons or organisations to the public under our real names and others may make allusions to former employers where there was a payout and a confidentiality agreement... so a pseudonym is preferable. It can be a useful and proper automatic disclaimer.
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The Standard has all the hallmarks of ‘we ARE struggling together!”.
And women are welcome as long as they're quiet, supportive, and supply the tea and scones.
Two observations.
First: "What do you mean by 'We', white man?" (Scots, I need hardly mention, are not white but pale blue - it takes weeks of tanning to turn us white). The Standard generally enforces a very monolithic view of progressive movements. There's just too much of a tone of "Whadarya?!" for me to be comfortable there.
Two, Danielle, I've seen much worse than the expectation that "the ladies" are there to provide the tea and scones, with the possible promotion to the rank of Mother Courage if they're very, very good.
During the period of the initial extradition process against Julian Assange on rape charges, Prentice himself opened a thread titled... something like "X makes an Arse of the Swedish Justice System" (someone can search, but personally life's too short)... and inevitablly someone showed up vigorously issuing rape apologies of the usual sort: "She initially consented... it's just rough sex..." and so on. Someone did stand up to him, but was directly personally attacked by Prentice on that thread repeatedly while defending the goon. Then someone else chimed in, urging the persecution of the complainants and suggesting the Jews were behind it all. At that point, I ceased to read that thread.
Lynn Prentice knows what's going on and he actively promotes it.
Kiwibog may be a sewer and The Standard merely a gutter in comparisson, but I don't care to walk in either.