Random Anecdote from Work

I work as a security guard at a satelite TV company’s customer service service center. Usually its boring, but occasionally something interesting, funny or disturbing happened. This one falls mainly into the latter two categories.

One day, sitting behind the desk in the lobby with the other on-duty guard, I hear him suddenly say “Hey, you’re a biology man!”

I look up from the computer screen.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Check that out.” He points to the lobby’s TV. Who Wants to be a Millionaire is on. “Do you know the answer?”

On the screen was one of the first questions of the show, the ones that have an extremely low difficulty factor and almost no financial value.

Which of these is not a mammal?
A.) Cow
B.) Dolphin
C.) Bat
D.) Ostritch

“It’s the ostrich,” I say, giving him a slightly snarky look to let him know I didn’t like him implying that I might be stupid enough to not know what a mammal was. I wasn’t really mad, I knew he was just teasing, but I was playing along like this was serious. My coworker ignores, or doesn’t notice my expression.

“Really, it’s the ostrich? Wow.” He says. And then, “So what’s a mammal anyway?”

That’s right. He wasn’t teasing me, he was being serious. My coworker didn’t know what a mammal is.

Inclusionism/Deletionism Scale Proposal

I think it would be interesting if there was a scale that Wikipedians could use to measure their self-identified level of inclusionism or deletionism in their wikiphilosophy and to allow for easier communication of these points of view by sharing a common terminology and measuring system. In any case, it would make for interesting userboxes.

The proposed scale ranges from negative five to positive five. The lower the number, the more deletionist the philosophy, the higher, the greater tolerance for inclusion. Zero, obviously, is neutral. Anyway, here’s an outline of my proposed scale, ordered from lowest to highest:

-5 Wikipedia should offer no original content whatsoever. It should only offer links to reliable websites and print references.
-4 Wikipedia should maintain only a tight core of widely accepted encyclopedic topics. Articles should include on the most need-to-know information on their respective subjects; no trivia, fluff or excessive detail, even uf relevant.
-3 Wikipedia should enact policy changes to restrict the inclusion of obscure, esoteric or pop cultural subjects. All additions lacking obviously reliable sources should be deleted on sight.
-2 Wikipedia should be much stricter in its enforcement of current deletion policies.
-1 Wikipedia should be slightly stricter in its enforcement of current deletion policies. Notability standards should be less lenient.

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0 Wikipedia’s standards for inclusion and deletion are exactly right as they are, and the level of policy enforcement is also spot-on.

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+1 Wikipedia should be slightly more relaxed in its enforcement of deletion policies.
+2 Wikipedia should greatly relax its enforcement of deletion policies. Notability standards should be more lenient.
+3 Wikipedia should completely do away with notability standards. Any content that can be verified by reliable, independant sources is an acceptable addition.
+4 Only vandalism can be removed freely. Content must be demonstrated to be inaccurate through a reliable source before it can be removed, although policies regarding what constitutes an accurate source should be greatly relaxed.
+5 No content should ever be deleted from Wikipedia. Only positive contributions should be accepted.

Not sure what we should call this scale, but I’m sure someone here can think of something spiffy. If anyone has any comments, ideas, criticisms, or whatever, please reply. I think we could make something interesting here.

Discernment Runs High in Tennesee

Recently, a rather sneaky whore thought she could pull one over on the spiritually discerning citizens of Bartlett, Tennessee. In the guise of a fitness dance studio, she actually installed stripper poles and began instructing local harlots in the pertinent dark arts!

Fortunately, this hell-hole of debauchery was shut down the other day. Information gained during the operation paints an even more frightening and devious portrait of the spiritual Enemy of Christendom. Inside his viper-pit of sin, it was discovered, no actual stripping took place! In fact, men weren’t even allowed in – and no, it’s not even a dyke club!

I believe that this is the first time in all the 6,000 year history of creation that a strip club has been instituted where nobody stripped and the relevent audience was barred admittence! It’s just more evidence that Christians need to keep on their toes as the ever-escalating war against the Wicked One continues. Come quickly, Lord!

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Okay, okay, time for a serious note. I was moved to write due to this and another case, both of which caused a certain amount of outrage among conservative Christians.

The other case was a charity event sponsored by Virgin Mobile and the National Network for Youth. The charity was called strip2clothe and encouraged people to submit non-nude “strip tease” videos of themselves. In return, Virgin would donate clothes to help homeless youths in quantities based on the amount of views they received.

Yeah, I was outraged too, but not the same way they were. I was outraged at the Christians for being outraged over the charity, and for wanting that stripper-pole excerise gym shut down.

Why? Fair question. I agree that encouraging kids to strip (even just part way) and posting the videos on the internet is a very bad idea. I agree that maybe there would be more dignified ways to achieve a healthy BMI than to learn to pole dance.

Abyssal says…
These Christians would rather you have a heart attack than pretend to strip, or see you freeze to death on the street than someone pretend to strip for you!

So if I’m taking the same stance as the Christians, why would I be mad at them? It’s not because of the opinion they formed, ’cause I agree with that. It’s that they acted on their gut reaction and tried to shut those causes down instead of merely giving some well-desrved criticism.

As much as disliked the details of those institutions, I have to question the morality -and that is the issue here- of anyone who would try to shut down a harmless exercise club and a charity event out of sexual prudery (or is it repression?).

I see the actions of these Christians and I get the impression that these people would really rather see women slip into diabetic comas or go morbidly obese than just pretend to strip! And these guys would rather see people freezing to death on the street than have someone post an unsexy video to ’strip2clothe’ them!

This really seems to be the kind of “morality” Christians are pushing these days. I have to say that I don’t see it like they do. Maybe I’m spiritually blind, but I just don’t see how matters of life and death (getting exercise is life and death) and the poor having proper clothing are trumped by prudish sexual standards.

This just forms part of why I find myself constantly being disillusioned with Christianity and it’s so-called “morality.” Take crucifixes for example. It may or not be common knowledge that Jesus was nude on the cross. This was standard Roman practice for crucifixion; the humiliation was part of the torture. But in artistic depictions and religious icons, he’s always wearing something.

Abyssal says…
The average Christian prude is more offended by Jesus Christ’s testicles than his torture!

Isn’t that rewriting the story? I mean, the Bible explicitly says he was stripped first and there was that memorable prophecy fulfilling image of soldiers dividing up his clothes and gambling over his seamless robe. So where did he get the loincloth? Why have Christians tampered with the “Word of God” and have him clothed on the cross? Don’t bother to answer, I think we all know the underlying motivations- prudery and squeamishness about the human body. Pure and simple.

Look, it’s not like I want to see Jesus naked -my pearly gates don’t swing that way- but that he’s not naked on crucifixes and in religious art is very revealing about the skewed priorities of moralizing Christians. Think about it; they have no problem at all portraying their Savior’s torture on every wall in their home- yet his genitals are taboo.

And I’m supposed to take these guys seriously? Prudes that are more offended by Christ’s testicles than his torture? These people, who don’t bat an eye at atrocious violence, but cringe away from the body their own God took upon Himself are going to tell us about morality?

Fine, let them. I just don’t want to hear them bitch when nobody takes them seriously. But what are the chances of that?

Some Sense Shown in Middle School Strip Search Case

Remember that incident in Safford, Arizona where the 13 year old girl was strip searched on suspicion of posessing ibuprofen?

Well, they didn’t nearly as far as I wanted (sexual abuse charges filed), but it was recently declared to be unconstitutional. A small victory to be sure, but definitely better than nothing!

My Latest Amazon Haul [Part III]

Alien Abduction and my Therapist

I was visiting my shrink at some point in the recent past, and at some point in the session I mentioned that, in addition to all those paleontology pages, I had been contributing to Wikipedia’s article on alien abduction. The response I received was somewhat interesting.

My therapist knows of my interest in science, and since I wanted to maintain whatever credibility I had in that department, I tagged my admission with a “not that I necesarily believe in it” disclaimer. Turns out that the disclaimer wasn’t really necessary.

Truth be told, she seemed very much open to the idea alien abduction. She didn’t seem to hold the position that I strongly expected a mental health professional to take “there’s probably a psychological explanation,” or even the old reliable, “they’re all just making it up.” Just plain openmindedness. Weird.

I asked her if she knew of anyone making an abduction claim, like through her practice. None, she said. According to her, most people with really “out there” mental health conditions tend to have religious-inspired delusions or hallucinations “in this area” (we do live in West Virginia though). Things like “thinking they’re talking to Jesus when really they’re talking to a tree.”

But not aliens. She’s never encountered an alleged abductee directly through her job as a mental health practitioner, nor has she known of any encountered by her colleagues. Now I’m not saying that just because my own personal shrink hasn’t encountered any abduction claimants through her work that abduction reporters aren’t crazy. But, it just seemed like… an interesting tidbit to share.