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Minor items of note before I proceed to entry proper:
-A tale of good customer service. Today at 12:25pm, Roomie ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut. He was told it would be about an hour. When 2:53pm came with no pizza, he called to inquire what had happened to the food. The manager told us the driver had claimed he had called and knocked and gotten no response. We explained we had heard neither knock nor ring.
3:45, and a pizza arrives, along with an apology. The pizza was free except for a delivery charge and tip. Pizza Hut will be getting our custom for a good, long while, as opposed to Papa John's, who declared us a "bad order" when the same thing happened two years ago.
-Katie Couric is an idiot. Apparently, she repeatedly slapped a staffer for using the word "sputum" in a news report because she disliked the word.
I'll let that sink in.
Katie Couric, the first woman to anchor a major network evening news broadcast, physically assaulted an underling because he dared to use a word she didn't like. A word that is, insofar as I know, the medical term for spit and non-vomitous oral discharge.
No, no, no. This is adulthood, Miss Couric, and in the grown-up world, we sometimes have to discuss or refer to issues, problems, or words we don't want to hear. Yes, "sputum" is a thick, unlovely word that conjures nasty images, but suck it up. It is also correct, and when it comes to disseminating the news, your sensibilities don't count. Getting it right does.
Unless someone is endangering themselves or others(practicing brain surgery on a coworker with rusty salad tongs or peeing in the potato salad in the communal refrigerator), it is absolutely unacceptable to hit them. Hitting someone with whom you disagree is the last resort of the weak and an act for which children are punished. Act your age and restore a modicum of dignity to the job. How I long for the days of Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings.
And from the WTF Files:
I followed a link from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hogwarts_today to this essay by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkthirty Thrust squarely in the middle of an interesting but problematic entry on Rowling and the outside influences that may or may not have altered the course of HP canon was this tidbit of inexplicable genderbashing:
Rowling's note about changing a couple deaths and a life did, at the time, however, raise one alarm. It was around the time of the public reading with Irving and King, who both seemed to be suggesting Rowling had to let Harry live. We, some of us, at any rate, watched this event with a growing horror - these men, these experts, were, in spite of statements to the effect that Rowling was top billing and they merely warm-up acts, presuming to influence her anyway, not out of what could be percieved as deep love of the character Harry, but for some larger purpose - they thought he should live, and thought Rowling should be persuaded.
Well, fuck right off, you presumptuous men. This was a deep and pervasive chauvanism that all of fandom, with rare exceptions, completely missed. Went over their heads. I don't care if they've defended Rowling as a writer for years, they might have said " we trust you to write the best last novel you can, whether or not Harry lives or dies." But they didn't. So, fuck them. I hate Stephen King anyway, and Garp was more cute than compelling.
So because King and Irving have dangles instead of dongles, they aren't allowed to fanboy? Would the expression of the same opinion-that Harry should live-be less galling if it had come from Amy Tan and Toni Morrison? King and Irving weren't wearing their Representative of Men hats and shiny codpieces when they offered up those thoughts; they were acting as fans, fans who happened to possess penises. As fans, they haven't expressed an opinion that isn't held by countless HP devotees of any gender, and I have the sneaking suspicion that had they espoused the opposite opinion, they would have been pilloried just as badly and demonized as Tools of the Patriarchy.
Frankly, the entire post reeks of intellectual snobbery. It implies that Rowling has an obligation beyond that of telling the best story that she can, that the monumental popularity of HP carries with it an implicit duty to espouse a greater agenda than simply entertaining readers. Of course, that agenda should be tailored to the cause celebre of whichever tin-hatted zealot is pounding the keys.
In truth,darkthirty is more condescending and presumptuous than King and Irvine. She is telling Rowling that Harry's end should be used as a tool to Stick It to the Man, and that she must do this to atone for HBP, which "read like bad fanfic."
If this is true, then maybe Rowling needs two bad, old men with their dirty, dirty wongs(men who are vastly superior writers, IMO) to tell her how to do it right. Or maybedarkthirty can help.
Honestly, every time I read her meta, I'm struck by the image of Hermione Granger with a titanium dildo clapped to her hip like a sidearm as she prepares to take down men with their own greatest weapon.
-A tale of good customer service. Today at 12:25pm, Roomie ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut. He was told it would be about an hour. When 2:53pm came with no pizza, he called to inquire what had happened to the food. The manager told us the driver had claimed he had called and knocked and gotten no response. We explained we had heard neither knock nor ring.
3:45, and a pizza arrives, along with an apology. The pizza was free except for a delivery charge and tip. Pizza Hut will be getting our custom for a good, long while, as opposed to Papa John's, who declared us a "bad order" when the same thing happened two years ago.
-Katie Couric is an idiot. Apparently, she repeatedly slapped a staffer for using the word "sputum" in a news report because she disliked the word.
I'll let that sink in.
Katie Couric, the first woman to anchor a major network evening news broadcast, physically assaulted an underling because he dared to use a word she didn't like. A word that is, insofar as I know, the medical term for spit and non-vomitous oral discharge.
No, no, no. This is adulthood, Miss Couric, and in the grown-up world, we sometimes have to discuss or refer to issues, problems, or words we don't want to hear. Yes, "sputum" is a thick, unlovely word that conjures nasty images, but suck it up. It is also correct, and when it comes to disseminating the news, your sensibilities don't count. Getting it right does.
Unless someone is endangering themselves or others(practicing brain surgery on a coworker with rusty salad tongs or peeing in the potato salad in the communal refrigerator), it is absolutely unacceptable to hit them. Hitting someone with whom you disagree is the last resort of the weak and an act for which children are punished. Act your age and restore a modicum of dignity to the job. How I long for the days of Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings.
And from the WTF Files:
I followed a link from
hogwarts_today to this essay by darkthirty Thrust squarely in the middle of an interesting but problematic entry on Rowling and the outside influences that may or may not have altered the course of HP canon was this tidbit of inexplicable genderbashing:Rowling's note about changing a couple deaths and a life did, at the time, however, raise one alarm. It was around the time of the public reading with Irving and King, who both seemed to be suggesting Rowling had to let Harry live. We, some of us, at any rate, watched this event with a growing horror - these men, these experts, were, in spite of statements to the effect that Rowling was top billing and they merely warm-up acts, presuming to influence her anyway, not out of what could be percieved as deep love of the character Harry, but for some larger purpose - they thought he should live, and thought Rowling should be persuaded.
Well, fuck right off, you presumptuous men. This was a deep and pervasive chauvanism that all of fandom, with rare exceptions, completely missed. Went over their heads. I don't care if they've defended Rowling as a writer for years, they might have said " we trust you to write the best last novel you can, whether or not Harry lives or dies." But they didn't. So, fuck them. I hate Stephen King anyway, and Garp was more cute than compelling.
So because King and Irving have dangles instead of dongles, they aren't allowed to fanboy? Would the expression of the same opinion-that Harry should live-be less galling if it had come from Amy Tan and Toni Morrison? King and Irving weren't wearing their Representative of Men hats and shiny codpieces when they offered up those thoughts; they were acting as fans, fans who happened to possess penises. As fans, they haven't expressed an opinion that isn't held by countless HP devotees of any gender, and I have the sneaking suspicion that had they espoused the opposite opinion, they would have been pilloried just as badly and demonized as Tools of the Patriarchy.
Frankly, the entire post reeks of intellectual snobbery. It implies that Rowling has an obligation beyond that of telling the best story that she can, that the monumental popularity of HP carries with it an implicit duty to espouse a greater agenda than simply entertaining readers. Of course, that agenda should be tailored to the cause celebre of whichever tin-hatted zealot is pounding the keys.
In truth,
darkthirty is more condescending and presumptuous than King and Irvine. She is telling Rowling that Harry's end should be used as a tool to Stick It to the Man, and that she must do this to atone for HBP, which "read like bad fanfic." If this is true, then maybe Rowling needs two bad, old men with their dirty, dirty wongs(men who are vastly superior writers, IMO) to tell her how to do it right. Or maybe
darkthirty can help.Honestly, every time I read her meta, I'm struck by the image of Hermione Granger with a titanium dildo clapped to her hip like a sidearm as she prepares to take down men with their own greatest weapon.
