In Reply: It IS in large part about the word Marriage. Let's solve that...

In reply to the following comment at the post Eich Is Out. So Is Tolerance.:

I don't opinions have changed that much. I think that people are afraid to tell the truth or they are just quiet about it. I have some gay friends and I couldn't love them more. But I don't agree with their way of life. I just feel that the best way to handle it is to live and let live. My only real problem is that they want to call their union marriage. That is a christian word for a man and woman getting married. Let's us find another word that is for a man and man getting married or a woman and woman getting married. Look marriage up in the dictionary.
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On the point about the word marriage, I'm with you.

The name of a religious sacrament has no place in secular law and never did. For me the answer isn't to relegate gay folks to only having "civil unions," but to replace the word "marriage" in all laws with the term "civil union" and to recognize the sacred act of marriage as one way of getting civilly united under federal, state and local law.

That puts marriage and it's definition back in the hands of one's Creator and place of worship, while giving straight folks and gay folks the same access to the secular rights and responsibilities attendant to those united according to US law.

(I fully understand that this is never going to happen, btw, and that the confusion and struggle between "sacred marriage" and "secular marriage" will continue... but just because it won't change doesn't mean it shouldn't...)
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Posted Saturday, April 5, 2014, 7:44 PM

In Reply: Rolling Heads Stuck on Sticks (Erik Loomis, metaphor, partisanship; National Review)

In reply to: Poor Erik Loomis - By George Leef - Phi Beta Cons - National Review Online, and the following piece, in particular:

"Some academics are mounting a defense of Loomis, as if he had transgressed no boundary of civility. I think he did. It’s bad enough to blow your lid and blame someone you dislike for a tragedy he had nothing to do with, but unacceptable for a professor to suggest, even rhetorically, that violence is warranted."
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Dr. Loomis "blew his lid?"

No, I'm pretty sure Dr. Loomis doesn't even have a lid.

See, that's a metaphor for something else; being very angry and reacting inappropriately. Generally it's only non-native speakers who take a metaphors literally, and when they do, miscommunication runs rampant. (Well... not literally rampant.)

Wanting someone's head on a stick? A metaphor for wanting that person to be publicly punished for something they did, thus made an example of. To (willfully or otherwise) misunderstand that fairly common idiom as a call to violence and “eliminationist rhetoric” is, well, kind of transparent.

I would think having too many writers at National Review who consistently took metaphorical statements literally would cause heads to roll. (though not literally, one hopes.)
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Submitted for moderator approval Posted (for real, this time) 12/20/12, 5:20 PM (or so)
(Thought I saw that it had posted over there while I was finishing this post here. Either I was mistaken--the guess I'm going with for now--or it was moderated away after the fact.)

Sunday Morning Wordle, 8/4/12 (x2)

Via blog link:

Via text cut'n'paste:

(I've been using the former method, but I think I prefer the latter, even if it is more work. The html link doesn't cover the whole week (or everything on the visible page, which it more what I expected), obviously... All those mentions of "chicken" in the "chick-fil-a playlist" post should've blown that word up in the first version the same way it did in the second.)

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Sunday Morning Wordle, 7/29/12

Sunday Morning Wordle, 7/22/12

Sunday Morning Wordle, 7/1/12

For Cons, teabagging may only be the beginning...

iPod Semi-Random 10 - 8/19/07

1) Better -
Antigone Rising -
From the Ground Up



Antigone gets a little extra oomph because my wife's known two of 'em (the sisters) since they were all in diapers or so... I've been regailed with tales of houses almost burned down and similar female preteen hi-jinx... Aside that, they're very, very talented...

2) I Walked Away -
Sunfall Festival -
NPR: Open Mic Music Podcast

3) Congress...Your Fired -
Jason Brock -
The PEACEPOD Podcast

4) Whole Of The Moon -
Mandy Moore -
Coverage

5) "To Elsie" or "The pure products of America / go crazy" -
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) -
In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry (Disc 1)

6) Play That Funky Music -
Wild Cherry -
The Disco Box [Disc 2]

7) Like Castanets - Bishop Allen -
KEXP Song of the Day Podcast

8) I Will Move On Up A Little Higher -
Mahalia Jackson -
Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack for a Century - Folk, Gospel & Blues: Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Disc 1)

9) Americano -
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers -
Paste Magazine Issue #9

10) Llama -
Phish -
Picture of Nectar

Dishonest Debate Tactics - Shifting the Burden

Now that I'm taking all the political stuff outta here (Have you seen the spiffy new blog, Wingnuts & Moonbats?), I figure I can focus on other things, here...

Today, I'm thinkin' about using language and debating, & specifically about folks who want you to disprove their points or statements.

Some of the following examples will be real. Some will not be real. Either way, I'm not interested in discussing the veracity of the statements, but only their value in confrontational conversation.

You suck. Go on, prove you don't.

The anti-war movement is anti-American.

You stole my sandwich.

Conservatives hate free speech.

Anarchists and Liberals share the same basic political philosophy. They're Nazis.

These statements (& every other affirmative statement under the sun) all share a similar feature. The onus is on the person making it to prove his/her statement is true, by offering evidence. That's the way it's supposed to work, and we have every right to expect that proof, rather than just accepting the veracity of the statement. In it's absence, one has every right to flat out dismiss the statement as being without merit.

Sometimes, that's where the trouble starts...

Sometimes, the party making the statement tries to turn it around, and requires YOU to prove what THEY said is untrue. They're not proving anything... Instead, they're trying to shift the burden of proof to you. And, they're asking you to prove a negative, which, if you really think about it, is just about impossible.

There is no conclusive evidence I could ever offer that I didn't steal something. I could produce people who saw me somewhere else, but the accuser says, "So you didn't steal it at that time... But prove you didn't steal it, at all." A search of my property reveals no stolen item. "Maybe you hid it. Proves nothing." No physical evidence on my person. "You were careful, wore gloves, and showered. You still could've done it." No matter what I said, I could never ever prove I didn't do it.

That's why legally, ethically, & logically, the onus for providing proof always falls on the original speaker. Don't get trapped, and don't accept the claim that you're only "playing word games, or semantics," which often indicates that they know the jig is up; you recognize their "word game," of shifting the burden of proof for their words onto you. Make them keep the burden they came into the conversation with. Make 'em prove what they say is true.

If a person is unwilling or unable to prove the statement s/he's making is true, you are under no obligation to accept it is true, and can therefore reject it as unproven, & therefore untrue.

If you still don't believe me, just try to prove you don't suck.

(When you can't, it won't mean you do suck. or that you don't suck. or anything else, at all. And that is the point.)

Some of those statements above have other problems, like being sweeping generalizations, as well. Perhaps I'll hit that one next time.