I haven't really been following the old/new BSG arguments...

Why should I? I'm a fan of the new show, I'm not a fan of the old show, and what other people decide to watch or not watch is their own business. Kinda like sex, or religion.

However, I can't let the recent kerfuffle (nice word, huh?) go completely uncommented on. Mostly because it looks like a group of people has decided to make the old-show-fans look stupid....

( Cutted for links, text, and my loud opinions. )

Now that the excerpts are gone, I will reiterate something I've said many, many, many times before: Showing something isn't the same as promoting it.

And yet, this seems to be a classic flaw. The book Zel shows premarital sex, therefore it encourages it, despite the heavy-duty, immediate consequences of that sex. Star Wars shows Han shooting first (SHUT UP!), therefore it encourages people to shoot first. Lolita shows a pedophile, therefore....

This line of reasoning is at best, childish. It only seeks to stop the rest of us from thinking. You may, and should, choose not to watch, listen to, or read something that makes you uncomfortable. If you really don't want to read books about whatever, then you shouldn't do that. But to be so intellectually dishonest that you feel you must tell other people not to read the book because "well, it shows something I disagree with, so it must be promoting it" is completely unacceptable.

So much so that I even understand the insults headed towards that forum over that letter. It's hard to show respect for people who divide the world up so simply.

This has been a lot of talk about not much. Sorry about that.

One last post before I sleep...

I'm so proud of Ana...

The other day, we're riding the bus going home. The bus isn't crowded, so I'd just put Ana in her own seat. We're in the third pair from the front of forward facing seats. And this guy comes on (last guy to get on the bus before our stop), and I guess he wanted a forward-facing seat, because he doesn't sit down, he stands in front of us. Now, there *were* two available forward-facing seats, but in order to get one he'd've had to have asked the people sitting in the seats next to the aisle to either move to the window seats or to let him sit in the window seat, and I guess he didn't want to do that. There were also several non-forward-facing seats.

So I see this, think for a second, and then decide that if there's plenty of seats, and he's not even going to ask anybody to move so he can get his prefered seat, I'm not going to shift Ana around.

Ana saw him too. And she looked at him, looked at me, then looked down at herself - and decided that clearly, she was taking up a seat that he could have. So she moves herself into my lap. Of course, right as she did this, the person in front of us gets off, so until that guy finished sitting down, and for half a minute afterwards, Ana's pointing at her former seat and going "Heah! Sit heah!"

*giggles*

*hugs the Ana-baby*

She's so sweet most of the time.

Whee!

Paid Account Fairy has struck again! Either that or somebody has bought me more paid time, but I really hope that's not the case, I don't need it. *peers around anxiously*

Thoughts on the Harry Potter house system, and views of same...

A lot of people have commented disparagingly on the implied "ranking" of the various houses: Clearly, they say, Gryffindor is considered the best, followed by Ravenclaw, then Hufflepuff, then Slytherin, unless you happen to be in Slytherin, and what does being told you're not in the best house do to your precious self-esteem?

Except that this is the viewpoint of a bunch of kids who all ended up in Gryffindor. As I've said before, I'm firmly of the belief that children are sorted into the houses they want to be in. Now, I think this is what makes them who they grow up to be, unlike Dumbledore, who seems to think it just shows who they're going to grow up to be, but that's just a side-conversation.

How do we know that all the other houses have the same ranking system? We know that one kid, impressed at Hermione's knowledge of an advanced spell, was surprised she wasn't in Ravenclaw - clearly, to his mind, his house is best. Hufflepuff is a load of duffers? Maybe - or maybe that's just the view of all the people who aren't Hufflepuffs, and they view themselves differently, the people who support the school. Slytherin means you're gonna be evil? Do the Slytherins know that? Maybe that's a prejudice handed down by the other houses, but as far as they're concerned, they're just interested in 1. being smart and making connections and 2. preserving wizarding traditions, unlike those who'd give up everything they had in order to go with the new.

Maybe they even rank the other houses not just lower than their own houses, but lower than we'd expect. Maybe the Hufflepuffs think that Gryffindors are all irritable, impractical, and flashy - no use to anybody.

Why do we assume that because Harry and his friends, who are Gryffindors think that their house is the best, that means that every other student in the school agrees with the assessment?

Taken from griffen's latest linkpost (which you should read)

Damn those elitist pilot bastards!

And we all know that while God doesn't believe Himself to be a pilot, pilots all believe themselves to be God. I don't want to entrust my life to them!

Thoughts on Lost...

( Read more... )

*sighs*