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znModerator. I don’t know how feminists don’t see this.
Well partly that because there’s no such thing as A feminist, there are different feminISMs and they are debating this stuff…the existence of that debate just doesn’t make the mainstream. Your article is a good example of that very debate. The woman who wrote it is a feminist…just not a mainstream feminist. She identifies as a socialist feminist, hence the critique.
…..
znModeratorIn my opinion what we can do is –instead of debating the intellectualism of whether socialism is a better form of government than capitalism or whatever etc-is to look across the street at our neighbor who is less fortunate and suffering and say: what can I do.
Well you can do both things. I know many who DO do both things.
I appreciate the general sentiment and understand what gave rise to it on this occasion.
znModeratori think this year will be different.
So far, what they need is Cooper to emerge as a year-one contributor, and then more out of Britt and/or Quick than they got in 2015 (actually both were better in 2014).
If anything else emerges in 2016 then IMO it’s gravy.
Can it happen? Sure.
znModeratorznModeratorWere you around when Jim Bakken was kicking for the Big Red? People called Wilkins “Money”, Bakken was the real “Money”. Now, Wilkins was good and the best I have seen at an onside kick, but when the Big Red lined up for a FG, it was “Game Over”.
Yeah, I was there from 73-76. Bakken was their kicker then. I didn;t take notice of him, though…just was too green at watching football at that point. You know he was originally drafted by the Rams.
znModeratorAs it happens the shooter has her own ideas on all this.
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from source:
The tragedy unfolded in an affluent neighborhood near Houston as 42-year-old Christy Sheats exploded with rage, firing at her daughters Madison, 17, and Taylor, 22, as they fled into the street.
…
Sheats reportedly owned several guns and recently posted a anti-gun control message on her Facebook page vowing never to give them up.
“It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away,” she wrote on her Facebook page in March. “That’s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semi-automatic handguns.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/super-racist-water-safety-poster-155438909.html
znModerator66%, that is just a horrible stat for a kicker. If he wasn’t hurt, he should have been cut. That is almost a Foles meltdown. imo
Well this much we know.
Rams kicker Greg Zuerlein is officially inactive for Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Zuerlein has been dealing with a groin injury. Zach Hocker was signed by the team on Saturday and will start as the team’s place kicker. Zuerlein has struggled with accuracy issues as over the past six weeks, converting barely over 50 percent of his 17 field goal attempts.
http://www.sbnation.com/fantasy/2015/11/29/9814264/greg-zuerlein-injury-update-fantasy-football-rams
znModeratorThat makes me think he was hurt last year.
He was hurt last year.
But when you say “that” makes you think he was hurt, what is “that”? Ie. what made you think that.
znModeratorAnd, the White Walkers are pretty cool
znModeratorJune 27, 2016 at 2:55 pm in reply to: For the scienzy folks in the house: Have there been . . . #47234znModeratorany studies on this online phenomenon?
I’ve noticed that on several sites, people often react to certain words in a sentence, while completely ignoring modifiers, qualifiers, etc. etc. Basically, they ignore the context. Even a full sentence context.
For example: In discussion of brexit, some were saying this is a victory for far-right racists and xenophobes in Europe — and I agree. They clearly talked about far right leaders, when they said this. No one said it was about “the people” in general, or Americans. The modifiers and qualifiers spoke of certain people, certain leaders and movements, top down. Not bottom up.
Many commenters reacted with anger, accusing the discussants of calling everyone who voted for brexit “racist and xenophobic,” etc. etc.
I see this constantly online. People accuse X of saying everyone is this or that, when they quite clearly never did.
Is there a term for this kind of skipping of essential data?
Well I don;t know about online, but there is a whole terrain of social psychology and sociology dedicated to emotional reasoning.
And in fact that’s part of negotiating emotionally laden issues on the net.
Here’s bit from a recent exchange about the Rams. I am one of the participants (on another board):
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POSTER 1: The problem is that Los Angeles fans had 20+ years to complain. It’s barely six months after the move and you’re telling Rams fans in St. Louis to shut up?
POSTER 2: IMO people should let you complain about ownership, and accept it with patience and generosity. After all we are loyal to a team, not an owner. Personally, I have no loyalty to Kroenke. People can praise him or condemn him, it makes no difference to me either way.
POSTER 3: Complain about the ownership all you want [poster 2], you can’t change it.
POSTER 2: I didn’t complain about ownership in this exchange. What I said was I don;t care about ownership either way…I follow a team not an owner. My exact words: “People can praise him or condemn him, it makes no difference to me either way.”
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I think that kind of emotions-first reading is part of all online exchanges.
znModeratorWell-I “think” it depends on how we define “thinking”. IMO thought can only occur through a language.
The better term to use then is cognition. For that matter, not all human cognition takes the form of “internal language.” Fact is, there’s a good chance only a small percentage of it does.
For example, the ability to make inferences from only partial data. Dogs do that regularly.
And on this?
But there’s no evidence to prove the dog is sad, lonely, and or misses his owner.
Yes there is evidence that that is what is happening.
See, there is an entire terrain of studies out there dedicated to examining cognition in dogs, and also emotional structures.
Unless you actually KNOW that data, you’re just winging it on what are probably dated assumptions.
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=-==The Hormone That Bonds Humans to Dogs
The hormone oxytocin has evolved into playing a major role in bringing humans and dogs togetherhttp://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hormone-that-bonds-humans-to-dogs-1442503702
Around the time of birth, female mammals release oxytocin in some brain regions, and the hormone allows them to register and recall their offspring’s smell, appearance or voice. Oxytocin rewards such maternal behavior with feelings of well-being.
More oxytocin innovations emerged. In the eons since mammals proliferated on earth, some primate and rodent species independently evolved pair-bonding (that is, sexual and/or social monogamy). In the brain, oxytocin is heavily involved in this as well. And as primates developed complex you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch yours relations, evolution adapted oxytocin to mediate the formation of trust and altruistic feelings toward fellow members of one’s group.
So evolution’s oxytocin R&D team has filed one compelling new patent after another. But something truly striking occurred sometime in the past 50,000 years (which is to say, over the last 0.01% of the time during which oxytocin has existed). During that evolutionary blink of an eye, humans embarked on something new, with oxytocin again in a leading role: the domestication of wolves.
How did this occur? Reporting in the journal Science, Miho Nagasawa of Azabu University in Japan and colleagues observed that modern dogs and their owners secrete oxytocin when they interact with each other. Remarkably, dogs who gaze the most at their humans during interactions had the biggest oxytocin rise—as did their humans.
The scientists then spritzed oxytocin (or saline, as a control treatment) up the dogs’ noses. The oxytocin caused female dogs to gaze more at their humans…whose own oxytocin levels rose as a result. All of this only affected dogs and their owners. Hand-reared wolves and their owners didn’t react in the same way to the treatment, and dogs administered oxytocin didn’t gaze any longer at humans who weren’t familiar to them. In other words, dog and human brains seem to have evolved at lightning speed to co-opt oxytocin for bonding between our species.
Even cooler is this teaching of a new trick to an old hormone—showing how evolution is a tinkerer, not an inventor, improvising with whatever is handy. Once humans and wolves started down this strange path together, their brains would never be the same.
znModeratorznModeratorW, this is the last place where anyone can get away with the “I am in the middle with the truth against the extremists” ideology.
For one thing we know it’s an ideology. Not the absence of one.
And we know what agendas it supports and which issues it nelgects, ignores, or covers over.
We also know that the idea that someone like Sanders is an extreme would be laughable in any other advanced democracy.
znModeratorI like to wonder about other ‘reality-experiences’ btw. Do galaxies ‘think’ ?
Do they ‘feel’ ? Universes? Quarks? Well, who knows.Well as it happens, I know what galaxies think about statements like that.
They are not amused.
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znModeratorThe turtle discussion below reminded me that any discussion of Anthropomorphism with dog lovers can become heated. As most of you know I am a dog person having raised hunting spaniels over my lifetime. However, some time ago I was having what started out as a pleasant discussion with some of my wife’s side of the family who now live in Arizona (wouldn’t you just know it). After hearing one two many “My dog is really “smart” because he “thinks” that (blah blah blah) I said something to the effect that dogs don’t “think” as in the same vein as humans (i.e. they don’t have a language using words and try thinking about a subject w/o using words). And that we often-me included-attribute human characteristics to animals (i.e. he’s cute, she’s depressed, he’s lonely, etc) Well that started it and it became heated. Finally, one truck driving, tatooted, gun toting NRA and Trump supporter, stood up and said “what are you-some kind of communist”.
Later Barb said to me “you know these people down there think your some kind of intellectual and that pisses them off”. Of course she then had to say-which many here will agree-“you are about as much of an intellectual as that dog of yours”.
Dogs do think. We know this. There are actually studies of dog cognition. There’s no doubt that their thinking is different.
And in fact dogs do have emotions. This has been studied down to the hormonal level. For example, the same hormone that causes infants and mothers to bond—oxytocin—is at play in dogs bonding with humans.
Very good book on the subject:
The Genius of Dogs
by Brian HareHare is a scientist, and he takes you through how he set up cognitive studies for dogs and where it took him.
znModeratorBut yeah, of course it’s not harmful in this instance to believe the turtle is grateful and indeed it may be.
I don’t see why I should be subjected to this kind of brutal flame posting and personal attacks.
You’re probably right, the turtle was probably saying “you suck, 9ers fan.” But seriously, have you seen “Finding Nemo”?
The turtles in THAT show a wide range of emotions.
So why ignore strong direct evidence of that caliber, just to get some slams in on me?
Oh, but, no…..I am the irrational one, right?
znModeratorNice video but the turtle didn’t thank the diver. That turtle was exhausted. It couldn’t get away. I thank the diver though. Turtles are cool.
We have to be careful when assigning human emotions/motivations to non-humans. Is the turtle grateful or even able to feel gratitude? No way to know.
Still a nice story though.
My view of this Great Controversy is that the turtle started to swim away but then turned around and came back to one of the divers.
In terms of being careful…well, why careful? If we assign some kind of sentient motives to animals, where’s the harm?
znModeratorBut the GOT has altered this with the Night King and their other undead folks like Jon Snow.
It’s . . . . maybe, complicated. ???
Yeah there’s more than one kind of undead. The Snow/Beric kind, the wights, and the Ser Gregor kind. They don’t even run in the same social circles. Heck there are even undead horses.
So, this much is certain.
GoT has brought a long needed sense of diversity to the undead.
(He said, with a twisted sense of playful irony.)
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znModeratorand i think last year what was missing was that receiving threat that amendola presented.
they’ve got gurley. they’ve got kendricks. just waiting for that amendola type guy (maybe that’s cooper) to get that same dynamic. i don’t think it’ll be austin although i do think austin will offer a dimension that the 2012 offense lacked.
That all sounds about right.
That 2012 offense was hampered in the 1st half of the season by OL injuries. When the OL was relatively stable and healthy in the 2nd half of the season, the offense averaged 338.6 yards a game. In 2012 that would have been 22nd. If the Rams were 22nd on offense last year, I think they woulda won 2-3 more games.
znModeratorFirst impressions of the finale? Wow. Just wow. What is the term? Prestige TV? Sheesh. This show epitomizes that and more. I don’t think anything can actually touch it for its range, its cinematography, locations, drama, climatic moments, suspense, etc. etc.
Love the aesthetics of the show and pretty much everything about it. My only quibble is something it really can’t help. The nature of the books forces them to move from story arc to story arc, and sometimes this feels like . . . wait a second. Stay with what you’re doing and don’t shift to another story arc!! But I can forgive them for this, because I pretty much love all of them . . . . well, with the exception of the Dorne stuff, which is better in the books than it is on TV . . . and it really should be great on TV. The source material is there, especially with the Sand Snakes. Great material, kinda squandered on the show.
Anyway . . . loved all kinds of moments, but especially when the little Mormont queen declared for Jon Snow. And the final scene of the armada on its way to Westeros. Too cool. Dragons, Daenarys, etc. etc. Now, seriously, how on earth is Cersei going to stop that! And, personally, I don’t want her to, at all.
A bummer that I have to wait a year to find out.
;>)
Big body count too.
June 26, 2016 at 2:08 pm in reply to: Player interviews, pics, & tweets (6/26): Easley, Gurley with Leroy Irvin, etc. #47151znModerator@TG3II hanging with the next generation of Rams. Thanks @EricDickerson @SGERD5 @LaRoiGlover l could of been somebody pic.twitter.com/IIM0yxz7ug
— LeRoy Irvin (@larams47) June 23, 2016
znModeratorWaterfield,
You’re correct about the term, “Mick.” I’m Irish as well. The English thought of the Irish as subhuman. Treated them as a different species, often like dogs. And they were treated that way in America when they first came over, too. Like dogs. Or worse. Some people treated their dogs much better than the Irish they encountered.
And it took many decades for the Irish in America before they were even considered “white” by the Anglo-American establishment.
Definitely a racist term.
I actually know a guy who wrote about the Irish in the USA and how race factors into their american history. Actually many american Irish opted for “becoming white” at the deliberate expense of freed blacks:
How the Irish Became White
by Noel IgnatievznModeratorWhen GOT is first-rate, it’s 1st rate.
Take this scene for example.
Set-up. Lord Tywin Lannister is at war with the Starks, his goal being to keep his grandson on the throne.
Arya Stark is lost between the lines and trying to make her way back to the Stark-held lines. She was picked up as a stray and made a prisoner by Lannister troops and Lord Tywin chooses her as a cupbearer.
The Lannisters need Arya Stark as a hostage to negotiate from strength, but, can’t find her; they do not realize this wandering stray is her, so Tywin has no idea his new cupbearer is a Stark girl pretending to be lower class (though he partially sees through her cover story, just without deducing it is Arya). Lord Tywin enjoys the company of his new cupbearer but he is also a steely, cold man.
Each character then does not know something in this scene. They are enemies, but Lannister doesn’t know she’s a Stark. Arya knows that the Lannisters executed her father, so when she maintains her cover as a lower class girl and speaks of her father it’s double-edged. At the same time, Arya doesn;t know that a knight of Lannister’s was recently murdered by poison and that Tywin, who thought he was the intended victim, suspects everyone–and is therefore actually using her to test for poison against her knowledge.
Also, the Lannisters are encamped in an old ruined castle that centuries ago was considered the strongest in the world, though it fell.
The scene:
znModeratorMy own take from this was that perhaps Darwin and others in Britain had been unduly influenced by Capitalism and its laws of competitive motion — consciously or unconsciously.
It is not entirely clear to me that Darwin himself was a social darwinist.
From the wiki:
Social Darwinists
It has been claimed that “the survival of the fittest” theory in biology was interpreted by late 19th century capitalists as “an ethical precept that sanctioned cut-throat economic competition” and led to the advent of the theory of “social Darwinism” which was used to justify laissez-faire economics, war and racism. However, these ideas predate and commonly contradict Darwin’s ideas, and indeed their proponents rarely invoked Darwin in support, while commonly claiming justification from religion and Horatio Alger mythology. The term “social Darwinism” referring to capitalist ideologies was introduced as a term of abuse by Richard Hofstadter’s Social Darwinism in American Thought published in 1944.
June 26, 2016 at 12:42 pm in reply to: Keenum will be the starter to open camp…how close or far is Goff? #47133znModeratorOn when should Goff start.
znModeratorI figure the Rams are 6-8M short for next year. There are a couple things they might do. Not resign Britt, Ayers, Reynolds, and Quick or let Brockers walk.
Saffold?
znModeratorJJ Watt got 9.7%
Olivier Vernon got 9.9%
Rogers got 13.3%
Wilson got 12.7%Good work.
What was Quinn?
znModeratorHere, now it is about football.
Moved it.
(Note: I had originally posted this on the wrong board.)
znModeratorIf Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House
George F. Will
April 29Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party, although already extensive, has barely begun. Republican quislings will multiply, slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history. These collaborationists will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.
Ted Cruz’s announcement of his preferred running mate has enhanced the nomination process by giving voters pertinent information. They already know the only important thing about Trump’s choice: His running mate will be unqualified for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified.
Hillary Clinton’s optimal running mate might be Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a pro-labor populist whose selection would be balm for the bruised feelings of Bernie Sanders’s legions. Running mates rarely matter as electoral factors: In 2000, Al Gore got 43.2 percent of the North Carolina vote. In 2004, John Kerry, trying to improve upon Gore’s total there, ran with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards but received 43.6 percent. If, however, Brown were to help deliver Ohio for Clinton, the Republican path to 270 electoral votes would be narrower than a needle’s eye.
Republican voters, particularly in Indiana and California, can, by supporting Cruz, make the Republican convention a deliberative body rather than one that merely ratifies decisions made elsewhere, some of them six months earlier. A convention’s sovereign duty is to choose a plausible nominee who has a reasonable chance to win, not to passively affirm the will of a mere plurality of voters recorded episodically in a protracted process.
Trump would be the most unpopular nominee ever, unable to even come close to Mitt Romney’s insufficient support among women, minorities and young people. In losing disastrously, Trump probably would create down-ballot carnage sufficient to end even Republican control of the House. Ticket splitting is becoming rare in polarized America: In 2012, only 5.7 percent of voters supported a presidential candidate and a congressional candidate of opposite parties.
At least half a dozen Republican senators seeking reelection and Senate aspirants can hope to win if the person at the top of the Republican ticket loses their state by, say, only four points, but not if he loses by 10. A Democratic Senate probably would guarantee a Supreme Court with a liberal cast for a generation. If Clinton is inaugurated next Jan. 20, Merrick Garland probably will already be on the court — confirmed in a lame-duck Senate session — and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer will be 83, 80 and 78, respectively.
The minority of people who pay close attention to politics includes those who define an ideal political outcome and pursue it, and those who focus on the worst possible outcome and strive to avoid it. The former experience the excitements of utopianism, the latter settle for prudence’s mild pleasure of avoiding disappointed dreams. Both sensibilities have their uses, but this is a time for prudence, which demands the prevention of a Trump presidency.
Were he to be nominated, conservatives would have two tasks. One would be to help him lose 50 states — condign punishment for his comprehensive disdain for conservative essentials, including the manners and grace that should lubricate the nation’s civic life. Second, conservatives can try to save from the anti-Trump undertow as many senators, representatives, governors and state legislators as possible.
It was 32 years after Jimmy Carter won 50.1 percent in 1976 that a Democrat won half the popular vote. Barack Obama won only 52.9 percent and then 51.1 percent, but only three Democrats — Andrew Jackson (twice), Franklin Roosevelt (four times) and Lyndon Johnson — have won more than 53 percent. Trump probably would make Clinton the fourth, and he would be a tonic for her party, undoing the extraordinary damage (13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, 11 governorships, 913 state legislative seats) Obama has done.
If Trump is nominated, Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party while working to see that they forgo only four years of the enjoyment of executive power. Six times since 1945 a party has tried, and five times failed, to secure a third consecutive presidential term. The one success — the Republicans’ 1988 election of George H.W. Bush — produced a one-term president. If Clinton gives her party its first 12 consecutive White House years since 1945, Republicans can help Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, or someone else who has honorably recoiled from Trump, confine her to a single term.
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