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10 October 2005

POT IS SHRILL AND UNFUNNY! posted by Kettle at 12:46 PM PST on October 10 [!]

MeTa 10312, truly the turd that sprouted a flower.

Holy cow, that is wonderful.

I told you that if we had a whole bunch of monkeys typing on a whole bunch of keyboards we'd eventually end up with something amazing.
posted by Specklet 10 October | 19:44
i don't really wanna know what all this is about, but i need a kittenpile
posted by ethylene 10 October | 19:45
I've been doing my best to stay out of threads like the one that referenced unless I have something constructive to add. It seems that it's less about saying what's on your mind and at least attempting to hear the other guy that simply digging in deep and winning the argument (a pyhrric victory always) and if possible making your "opponent" feel small. That ceased to be fun for me a long time ago and doing that to people always comes back to bite you (and the world) in the ass. I actually like both matteo and dhoyt and think they both have a lot to offer but their refusal to actually hear eachother is hurting them both, and the site. Just my two cents.
posted by jonmc 10 October | 19:48
pot is illegal, right?
posted by matteo 10 October | 19:48
oh, and dhoyt and I hate you, jon. I think you should know that
posted by matteo 10 October | 19:49
and you love eachother secretly, but we all knew that, too ;>
posted by jonmc 10 October | 19:50
and to make my point about clear-eyed analysis and compassion not being irreconcilable, I offer you these lyrics from his majesty James McMurtry about Middle "Red State" America:

Flatter than a tabletop
Makes you wonder why they stopped here
Wagon must have lost a wheel or they lacked ambition one
On the great migration west
Separated from the rest
Though they might have tried their best
They never caught the sun
So they sunk some roots down in the dirt
To keep from blowin' off the earth
Built a town around here
And when the dust had all but cleared
They called it Levelland, the pride of man
In Levelland

Granddad grew the dryland wheat
Stood on his own two feet
His mind got incomplete and they put in the home
Daddy's cotton grows so high
Sucks the water table dry
Rolling sprinklers circle round
Bleedin' it to the bone
And I won't be here when it comes a day
It all dries up and blows away
I'd hang around just to see
But they never had much use for me in Levelland
They don't understand me out in Levelland

And I watch those jet trails carving up that big blue sky
Coast to coasters watch 'em go
And I never would blame 'em one damn bit
If they never looked down on this
Not much here they'd wanna know
Just Levelland
Far as you can point your hand
Nothin' but Levelland

Mama used to roll her hair
Back before the central air
We'd sit outside and watch the stars at night
She'd tell me to make a wish
I'd wish we both could fly
Don't think she's seen the sky
Since we got the satellite dish and
I can hear the marching band
Doin' the best they can
They're playing "Smoke on the Water", "Joy to the World"
I've paid off all my debts
Got some change left over yet and I'm
Gettin' on a whisper jet
I'm gonna fly as far as I can get from
Levelland, doin' the best I can
Out in Levelland - imagine that
posted by jonmc 10 October | 19:53
yeah but he's deeply closeted, so don't tell anyone.
posted by matteo 10 October | 19:55
What was weird was, that thread absolutly nothing to do with Rothko untill he started posting in it.

and you love eachother secretly, but we all knew that, too ;>

Heh.
posted by delmoi 10 October | 19:57
yeah but he's deeply closeted, so don't tell anyone.

Actually, I think he once publicly said he was bisexual (although I could be wrong). He's not a bad guy, he's not ParisParamus or paleocon, he's just addled like we all are. So I cut him slack.
posted by jonmc 10 October | 19:59
Jonmc: As an Iowan I am offended by your post. Just because you live in a corn feild dosn't mean you can't enjoy a nice starbucks coffie while driving around in your volvo, as the club for growth seems to think
posted by delmoi 10 October | 20:05
(j/k) :P
posted by delmoi 10 October | 20:05
come on giovanni, I like PeePee -- don't tell me you don't. he is really funny. not that I'd meet him in RL, but his shtick, unlike so many other mefi wingnuts', is very funny.
posted by matteo 10 October | 20:20
But is the George W. Bush ID actually quonsar or not? Rothko certainly seemed to be convinced. But then other seem to be convinced that Rothko is that Alex Reynolds fellow.
posted by Carbolic 10 October | 20:21
I dunno, but clevershark wanted someone to jump him in that thread, which is just weird.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs 10 October | 20:24
i've always wanted a good kettle and now i'm thinking of getting pot.
but right now i'm going to pee pee
posted by ethylene 10 October | 20:35
What was weird was, that thread absolutly nothing to do with Rothko untill he started posting in it.

What I said about dhoyt goes double for Rothko. he's a decent guy, too, just addled aby his ego andneed to win. And he's a pitbull once he gets a hold of something, which is admirable in some ways and annoying in others. But his post torch-bearing behavior towards me shows he has compassion and a sense of humor.

In other news, I spen the afternoon at a hospital in Washington heights where a Urologist told me that i was "lucky" that my litotripsy was unsuccesful because the stone was too big and the chucnks it would have broken into would've caused agonizing pain. he said that many of his patients from the outer boroughs (Queens, brooklyn the Bronx, staten Island) tend to get hustled into lithotripsy because doctors get paid referral fees by the lithotripsy clinics. In early november I'm going in for laproscopic kidney surgery and I'll hopefully put this rather tedious chapter in my life behind me. [grumble, grumble]

on preview:come on giovanni, I like PeePee -- don't tell me you don't. he is really funny. not that I'd meet him in RL, but his shtick, unlike so many other mefi wingnuts', is very funny.

yeah, he's entertaining in the same way it's entertaining to watch drunks argue with telephone poles, dosen't mean that I actually like what he does or that it's doing any good.

delmoi: my favorite uncle lives in Decatur, Illinois, and my mom grew up in a Central Vermont quarry town. It don't get more Middle American than that. You know I love you folks. But in honor of your Starbucks reference, here's another James McMurtry* lyric:

Out Here in the Middle

TOP

They broke into your car last night,
took the stereo
Now you say you don't know why
you even live there anymore
The garage man didn't see a thing,
so you guess it was an inside job
You made a reservation, a table for three
They said you'd have to wait,
somebody must have bribed the maitre'd
Boss got mad and he blamed it all on you
Food was bad and the deal fell through

(chorus)
Well out here in the middle
you can park it on the street
Step up to the counter;
you nearly always get a seat
Nobody steals. Nobody cheats
Wish you were here my love
Wish you here my love

We got tractor pulls and Red Man chew Corporate relo refugees that need love too
we ain't seen Elvis in a year or two
we got justification for wealth and greed~
Amber waves of grain and bathtub speed
We even got Starbucks
what else you need?

(chorus)
Out here in the middle
Where the center's on the right
And the ghost of William Jennings Bryan preaches every night
To save the lonely souls
in the dashboard lights
Wish you were here my love
Wish you were here my love

(chorus)
Out here in the middle
Where the buffalo roam
We're putting up towers for your cell phones
And we screen all applicants
With a fine tooth comb
Wish you were here my love
Wish you were here my love

*I'm quoting him a lot since I'm gonna see him ive later this month at the Mercury Lounge. But he does write some incredible songs.
posted by jonmc 10 October | 20:42
I gave up on those threads for a lot of reasons.

They're not worth it.
posted by mosch 10 October | 20:44
Kettle and Pot have made me laugh before. Good stuff. They have good timing and so far understand restraint. I'm sure they'll have a sitcom in no time.
posted by Slack-a-gogo 10 October | 20:47
I'd meet PP in real life; I bet he's a blast.
posted by kenko 10 October | 20:49
I have met him. He looks like Vincent Schiavelli and he was quite personable, as was unclefes (probably the best conservative in MeFi history).
posted by jonmc 10 October | 20:51
UncleFes is swoon worthy.
posted by cali 10 October | 21:16
and a third degree mensch, as are amberglow and languagehat.
posted by jonmc 10 October | 21:18
Note that we're losing LH from mefi. That thread is a microcosm of what's wrong with metafilter. And, matteo, your posts are excellent but at this point I'm thinking maybe you should be prevented from commenting. In almost every comment you are as provocative as possible to everyone and anyone that you perceive as an enemy. It doesn't matter if you're correct--and you probably often are--you're still poisoning the well. Rothko adds nothing to the site and this thread is an example of what he takes away. Longtime personal feuds in general are poisoning the site.

I think it's finally time for heavy moderation and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who things so. I'd vote for bugbread to join jessamyn as deputy moderators.

It seems to me that what most people want from mefi is something in between what we have here on mecha and what mefi has become. Here we have far, far less conflict and drama and generally everyone is damn nice. People like that and they miss that congeniality on metafilter (but like it on askme). However, there really isn't any substantial discussion--it's purposefully "light" and "chatty" here (I'ts MetaCHAT!) Mefi is almost total warfare, all the time. In between is amiable, substantial discussion which is fading away from mefi because, in my opinion, it takes a small minority of people to create and nurture an ethos of this and mefi has lately been driving those folks away, leaving only the warriors. I think LH is a prime example.
posted by kmellis 10 October | 21:55
i vote that n00bs stfu. who's with me?
posted by Wedge 10 October | 22:14
but at this point I'm thinking maybe you should be prevented from commenting

well, you can try to suck up all the bandwidth with a trademark EB nevereeeeeeeeeeeeending comment -- I'll then be unable to load the fucking thread

;)
posted by matteo 10 October | 22:24
matteo, like it or not, EB is a big part of what makes MeFi MeFi, just like you and me. It wouldn't be the same without him.

Like I've always said, the format of MeFi is a pretty standard bullletin board/group weblog, it us that make it something special. In a thousand years when archaeologists want to get a sense of what the world was like at the close of the second/opening of the third milennium our blitherings will be a fucking Rosetta Stone.
posted by jonmc 10 October | 22:29
can we bring the bunnies back?
posted by Edible Energy 10 October | 22:45
I could sure use some delicious blueberry pie.
posted by selfnoise 10 October | 22:48
The war is going bad, great disasters happen, the ice cap melts and on and on. Personally, I am terrified.

It's not 1999 anymore.These are very tense times for people. Great events are happening over which they have absolutely no control. Moaning and pointing fingers won't change the fact that we are living in interesting times even if that Chinese proverb is a hoax.


This is something analogous to going home f0r Thanksgiving right now. Sometimes people yell. I am all for cutting slack all around in regards to outbursts. I see human people. Since no one can be perfect, we should make like any dysfunctional family and pretend that nothing has happened and make nice as much as possible. To quote Dylan, I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in your dream.
posted by y2karl 10 October | 22:51
Yeah, the world sucks. But I think most individual people are pretty decent. It's scary how easy it is to demonize other people, basically deny their humanity. I read a comment like q's over in the "online personality" thread and suddenly he's a full-blown human being and everything he's ever written on mefi and elsewhere has a whole different, softer, look to me.

What you're advising takes a lot of strength and self-possession. Aggression breeds aggression and it's very hard to break that circuit. And, of course, it's well-nigh impossible to do the right thing when you perceive you've been attacked. Although I basically like people quite a bit, and think well of them, I also have (probably from personal history) a very strong instinct to defend myself, viciously if necessary, which is at odds with my perception of others. But in this perhaps I'm just like everyone else.

My cat who died last December was an incredibly difficult cat. You know the kind. She hissed even at me all the time, she could be dangerous. Over time I learned to see that for whatever reason she was the way she was and that she didn't "choose" to be so difficult, so paranoid. And it was clear that she loved me even though, maybe, even that might not have mattered to me. In the end I learned to just love her for herself and her outbursts didn't really bother me. In a very real way, I think that the person I'd like to be would be someone who would do this with everyone and anyone. But is that realistic? I don't know. But if the world is the Titanic and we've lately hit an iceberg, it's a damn shame that we're fistfighting on the decks for a place in a lifeboat. That's not the world I want to live in.
posted by kmellis 10 October | 23:03
I think it's finally time for heavy moderation and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who things so. I'd vote for bugbread to join jessamyn as deputy moderators.

Man, oh man, would that be a bad idea. I'd be in the double-crunch of always worrying if my deletions were warranted or if I was being overzealous ("Argument from hyperbole - DELETED!" "Tuo quoque - DELETED!"), and even if I managed to exhibit superhuman strength and keep my finger off the delete button, I'd have to put up with the flack jessamyn got when she was a new moderator, PLUS accusations that I was playing favorites.

Me, I vote for jonmc, with the following two stipulations:
1) No moderating when drunk
2) No moderating threads related to music
posted by bugbread 10 October | 23:36
Oh, it'll all be over by Christmas, you gloomy poops. One way or another.

*waggles fingers like a spooky witch/prophet*
posted by PinkStainlessTail 10 October | 23:47

Me, I vote for jonmc, with the following two stipulations:
1) No moderating when drunk
2) No moderating threads related to music


appalingly, it makes sense. it's not a bad idea. I'm for it
posted by matteo 10 October | 23:57
I read a comment like q's over in the "online personality" thread and suddenly he's a full-blown human being and everything he's ever written on mefi and elsewhere has a whole different, softer, look to me.

I am in favor of soul searching, myself. People can deceive themselves as easily as they can deceive others. I am all too aware of my own fault, all too worried over what I have done wrong. With the unself-examined, my motto is distrust and verify.

The more people can cop to their own shit, the more I am willing to cut them slack. It is a very hard thing to own your own stuff online and before strangers. It's as hard to back down as it is to not take things personal sometimes.I will not demand people apologize or grovel. Everyone softens if they stick around. People listen even if they will not acknowledge it in the open.


Things change and people are not what they said last year. Last week, last month--now maybe that's different. Personally, I think the place is doing OK, all things considered. There are interesting things linked and said all the time.
posted by y2karl 11 October | 00:00
As for moderation, I'd rather have King Log than King Stork. All the names mentioned so far are too Storky. I don't want snap judgements from a third source or the considered judgements of someone who can say unironically
you say I'm being willfully obtuse over in that MeTa thread, but if it's wilful, I'd be the one to know. I wasn't being wilfully obtuse. I can't really not automatically deny your viewpoint, because...well, you're wrong. If you'd said I appeared wilfully obtuse, then I guess you could be right, and I wouldn't disagree, but you state as fact something that I'm in a unique position to be able to determine categorically isn't fact, so I said so.
That is a very scary thought. No offense, bugbread, but you have no idea of how young and full of shit you sound when you say something like that. Just how old are you, anyway ? Let me be blunt: That is not a trust inspiring statement.

And I have seen jonmc try to take too many people to Meta to try to win an argument he should have walked away from. Quoting entire rock song lyrics should be another bar, for that matter. That is so annoying.

Ixnay on the heavy moderation. There's enough as it is. I don't want some control freak loosed upon the throng. A moderator should be a people person with an appreciation for human nature and, frankly, the nature of the medium tilts against people persons being in abundance.If I was forced to give a name, it would be Miguel or rodii. Under the circumstances, hoping for individual self control beats the idea of anyone thus far mentioned having control of other people.
posted by y2karl 11 October | 00:30
When we looked for moderators for mecha, we basically said we wanted people who wouldn't want to be moderators. Horses for courses, but it's probably still fairly good criteria if MeFi were to ever add more mods. (Also, after seeing what jess had to go though, masochism would probably be a good trait as well.)
posted by taz 11 October | 01:12
For Jon & the rest of you, (and I haven't read pas the lyrics) music to accompany those lyrics:
Out Here In the Middle, James McMurtry.
Levelland done by Robert Earl Keen, because I don't have James' version.

These are free version winamp files, aaacs or something equally ick, but you can hear them if you have winamp, or just download it real quick and then change them. Worth it, worth it, worth it.
posted by mygothlaundry 11 October | 01:29
pasT, past. Yeah.
posted by mygothlaundry 11 October | 01:30
wow, I can't believe I waited this long to join MeCha.

so, alex joined that thread because someone specifically said something along the lines of an insult toward him (iirc, it was because it was a thread reminiscent of his famous flameout.) and since alex has the mefi search page with his name plugged in on BOOKMARK or something, he caught it within minutes and jumped feet first into the shitfest.

did anyone else notice how the gwb sock puppet had alex convinced that it was quonsar just by (presumably in jest) mentioning that it was actually george w bush's account, but had been using the quonsar as the TRUE sock puppet for years?

I think he's convinced that quonsar is now hounding him with a sock puppet account.

and yes, that pot and kettle bit is the funniest $10 ever spent in the history of mankind.
posted by shmegegge 11 October | 01:34
and jonmc, I have GOT to get some nyc rock club hopping tips from you.
posted by shmegegge 11 October | 01:35
did anyone else notice how the gwb sock puppet had alex convinced that it was quonsar just by (presumably in jest) mentioning that it was actually george w bush's account, but had been using the quonsar as the TRUE sock puppet for years?

I did notice that, although GWB is definitely evocative of q's style.
posted by delmoi 11 October | 03:10
No offense, bugbread, but you have no idea of how young and full of shit you sound when you say something like that. Just how old are you, anyway ? Let me be blunt: That is not a trust inspiring statement.


I'm 30 (well, 31 in a few weeks). I'm not sure why it makes me sound young, but I do know that when I wrote it, it felt like I was writing something cocky, and that wasn't the intention, but it was one of those rare cases where I can state that something is categorically wrong, because I'm really the only person qualified to make that judgement.

I know that sounds cocky again, but keep in mind that I'm the kind of person who almost never uses the expressions "always" or "never", because there's pretty much always an exception. Weather forecasts of zero percent and 100 percent bug me.

So while statements like "I can't really not automatically deny your viewpoint, because...well, you're wrong." sound incredibly juvenile to you, they do to me too, and I feel that this example was both unusual for me, and one of those odd duck cases where it may be justified.

Which, of course, sticks us in a bit of a loop, because any addressing of this issue will then sound juvenile, and on and on.

Regarding the GWB thing, I dunno if Alex reads MeCha, but if memory serves me (and it might not), quonsar was referencing GWB's posts, so if Alex saw that, his suspicion might have deepened.
posted by bugbread 11 October | 06:12
*trying to catch up*
Languagehat is leaving metafilter? Noooooooooooooo! Why, where?
posted by dabitch 11 October | 07:42
Really, I don't want to believe that. I know he reads mecha sometimes,so if he's reading this, I hope he makes an appearance to clarify.
posted by taz 11 October | 08:00
Languagehat is leaving metafilter? Noooooooooooooo! Why, where?

because we're mean to right-wingers
posted by matteo 11 October | 08:59
I shouldn't speak for him. But we've communicated privately and he's said that he's losing interest in metafilter. He's not going to officially quit or anything, but he's there less and less these days. I personally think that he's an example of a Voice of Reason and there is increasingly less tolerance for that sort of thing on mefi. For whatever reasons.
posted by kmellis 11 October | 09:03
I've never been a big poster, but I've been reading MeFi for 2+ years and the recent tone of discussion certainly has me reconsidering spending any more time there. I recently subscribed to the RSS feed so that I could still get the links and avoid the discussion; previously, my motives were the exact opposite of this.

I certainly think that Rothko and his perpetual fueds with other users damage the sit and the level of discourse. I realize that he may or may not be picked on by other users, but his shrill holier-than-thou attitude, combined with his never-ending agitating statements (e.g., the GodDios strikeout thing) drive me up a wall. It has nothing to do with his politics, I'm as leftist as they come, but it's the same reason I don't read DKos, Democratic Underground, or their right-wing analogues.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently and didn't think it appropriate to start a "Rothko is ruining my MeFi experience" MeTa thread, so here it is.
posted by trey 11 October | 10:10
because we're mean to right-wingers


I'm pretty sure this is a misrepresentation. MeFi is a shitty place these days. I've been reading it for over two years, and I don't think it's ever been worse. Quality posts are ignored, shit posts garner hundreds of comments that mostly reduce to flamewars, users who claim to really care about MeFi carry around the kinds of grudges that prevent them from keeping their fingers to themselves when they should, and worst of all, none of these things seem mutually exclusive.

I'm not sure about heavier moderation, but I think a more consistent policy from Matt would help things a bit. He comments in MeTa one hour about how newsfilter posts bum him out, and then comments in a newsfilter post later in the afternoon. I actually think that he and jess do great jobs with maintaining a pretty neutral attitude on the site, and I understand that there is no black and white on the blue, but I really do think that the tone is horrible these days and a special effort is required right now to help the site.
posted by omiewise 11 October | 13:32
I'm really the only person qualified to make that judgement.

For one thing, there is this whole concept of the unconscious mind to consider. Anyone's thoughts on any give topic are studded with unconscious presuppositions.

La Rochefoucauld once said something to the effect that we are so used to concealing our our true nature from others that we usually conceal our true nature from ourselves.

If you have successfully analyzed the entire contents of you own mind and examined each and every such presuppostion you hold, you are one in six billion. It's a very unlikely situation.

La Rochefuoucauld also said our enemies are closer to the truth in their opinions of us than are our friends. He also said that if we did not flatter ourselves, we should get very little flattery at all. Automatically and categorically denying the validity of other people's perceptions of you is one quick way to never learn anything new about yourself.

posted by y2karl 11 October | 13:33
I just read that MeTalk thread. It was about as depressing as they come.
posted by omiewise 11 October | 14:26
For one thing, there is this whole concept of the unconscious mind to consider. Anyone's thoughts on any give topic are studded with unconscious presuppositions.


Ok, fair call, and well stated. I'll revise what I said from "You're wrong about what I was thinking, because I know for certain what I was thinking" to "I suspect you're wrong, because I'm more likely to know what I was thinking than you were to know what I was thinking. However, there is definitely the possibility that my thoughts were unconscious, and that you correctly noted behavior that I didn't notice myself."
posted by bugbread 11 October | 14:42
I've been reading it for over two years, and I don't think it's ever been worse.

maybe, but look what happened -- all those 5-dollar newbies convinced Matt to quit his day job. I'm not sure he agrees with you, I'm quite sure he likes MeFi more and more.

more power to him of course
posted by matteo 11 October | 21:27
My God. My fucking God, that is sad. I just read that whole thing after resisting all that time. Never mind the $5, I want my ten minutes back.

The only saving grace in that whole pile of steaming excrement was dejah420 who, like many others, has been sadly quiet lately.

matteo, more power to him indeed, but I predict that mathowie will regret that decision before too many moons have passed.
posted by dg 11 October | 23:16
Break on through to the other side. || Shining!

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