Glad it went well, sj. Since I got here late I'll offer quick recovery~ma.

Loved the Bound typeface and have forwarded it to D. The lolcat, too - he had a lolcat as one of his profile pics on OKC.

Speaking of D, we had our first minor disagreement last night, which actually came as a relief after the crazy non-stop OMG YOU TOO?!?!? But even better, he genuinely wanted to hear about my opinion and conceded that I had some excellent points and that he was probably overgeneralizing. Dear lord, calm and rational discourse on a sensitive topic? Will wonders never cease? On the funny/slightly freaky side, his sister has the same first name I do... and so does his ex-wife. Even the same spelling. Quite the coincidence, especially considering my OKC username does not involve my real first name so he couldn't have known.

I do love me a nice mohawk'ed cutie.

La la la Madison f2f la la la...

Sigh. Have just been informed my possible MrsRobinson-esque booty call from Boston is not, in fact, coming in to town this weekend. Sad. Not that I'd ever met the child, but the FB profile picture was cute, and since SHE was the one who told my friend *I* was hot, I was all about that. :) Ah well.

so you would be Mrs. Robinson? I've always kind of wanted to do that, but between my resemblance to a shambling teen and my general interest in people older than me, it's not looking likely. But I think anyone who got to be your Ms. braddock is lucky, Meara.

Only getting to read the board over lunch means I'm always a day behind the discussion, but I'll throw this out there anyway.

NoiseDesign wrote very thoughtfully yesterday about the anti-doctor kerfuffle, if you will, on the board. I’d like to appropriate his words (with apologies and my edits as noted in italics) to express something that has bothered me about the Buffista community. I thank NoiseDesign for his eloquence and I mean this sincerely:

...I feel like if I came in here after a long flight cross country next to a Republicanin a tiny plane seat and said "What the hell, Republicans shouldn't be allowed to get on a plane!" I'd be chased off the board. Now, just to be clear, I would NOT say that; political neutrality on planes is an issue with the airline industry, not with the people that ride on the planes. However, I stated it this way to bring it full circle. If I painted all Republicans with the same brush due to my disagreements with particular policies or elected officials, I feel like I'd be called on it. Same thing if I did it towards teachers. Years ago I WAS called on it when I did it towards religion.

The trick is, Republican bashing seems to be a safe thing to do on this board and it really does bother me. This isn't isolated, it's come up many times over the years. For some reason it is acceptable to bash on Republican officials and Republican citizens. I've never liked this.

Also, I'm Republican. According to most polls I'm actually conservative...

[Assorted unnamed Buffistas] , I know that you didn't intend to hurt, and please believe me when I say that I am so sorry for the experiences your life has brought you that taught you that it’s okay to treat Republicans that way. I wish I could make it better. Also know that we are fine. My reaction was not isolated to any one statement, but was a reaction to something that I feel is somewhat part of board culture, and it has bothered me for years. I try to be quiet about it most of the time, but sometimes it just hurts.

I don't expect people to never rant about politics, but I would like people to take just a moment and consider what they are typing before they type it. Think about the fact that you just might be catching some very good people in a very broad net of negativity.

I hope Vice President Cheney recovers fully and quickly and I thank him for the role he played in keeping us safe between 9/11/01 and 1/20/10. Running to take cover now.

This must feel like an AU for you, oftentimes.

AU??

Alternate Universe.ETA: This is going to sound unwelcoming as hell, probably, but I don't intend this: Why this board, now? I mean, you're not quite in the same position as the one guy I used to tussle with on "The Wire" board where I thought "Dude...what show are *you* watching?" (I think he used to enjoy baiting all the angry liberals anyways.) But you're not trolling us, and you could probably find more simpatico chat somewhere else...is there a special reason you haven't?

Ummm, yeah. Actually it reminds me of college, where I was a Mideast studies major in a department with a lot of Palestinian ex-pats as professors. (This was Georgetown University in the 1980s.) The post-1920 history they taught was basically 180 degrees from what I had been taught about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since I'm pretty conflict-avoidant, I didn't argue much in class. What I did appreciate was the fact that usually even if a professor thought I was defending for the bad guys and that everything I knew as true was wrong, he still would show basic respect for me as a person. Helped to keep me from unreasonable rages or permanent hatred of "the other." I'd like to see more of THAT kind of tolerance here extend to politics. (wishful sigh)

I hope Vice President Cheney recovers fully and quickly and I thank him for the role he played in keeping us safe between 9/11/01 and 1/20/10.

Is that inclusive because he did a shitty job of protecting us on 9/11/01. The worst terrorist attack in American history did happen on his watch.

I don't really know what he did during that decade other than flit to black ops sites around the world overseeing torture. I do know he did that, and I don't think it made us safer and I do think it suborned the American values that are most important to me.

To set aside my long list of grievances with the Bush administration for a second and just address the Republican Party, I will note that the official party platform is to deny marriage to gays and actively take away abortion rights from women. So...I think that's bad and wrong and people who support that are wrong and doing bad. Actively contributing to the suffering in the world.

So I'm going to have to be unrepentent in my hatred of Cheney. He cannot suffer enough in this world to match the suffering he is personally responsible for.

But if it makes you feel any better, I'm not particularly happy with the Democrats right now either, and I'm disappointed in Obama.

Then again, he's not actively promoting torture so he gets a little more slack from me.