Board Post, August 30 2011

Holiday Cheer

The holiday season is still a ways off, but TBAT would like to be able to spend it relaxing with friends and family. We're therefore putting out a call for holiday season articles to be submitted now, so we can edit and schedule them in advance and then take some time off without leaving a blank website.

So, anyone who feels they could write an article connected to the themes of Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, new year celebrations, Hogmanay, holidays, visiting family or anything else that strikes you as relevant: we'd appreciate it if you could do so in the next week or two and send it our way. The wider the range of subjects, the better.

Moving Fred's Posts -- an update

While the people at Patheos have been in the process of importing all of Fred Clark's old articles onto their website we have been removing the articles from this website. We started with the 2003 articles and have now reached the beginning of 2006. The text of a number of the old articles (selected by our readers and members of TBAT) have had their original replaced with their new address at Patheos.

TBAT has found that a small number of articles from the 2003-2005 period have not yet been imported into the Patheos website. These articles will, for the next few weeks, remain on The Slacktiverse unless they appear at Patheos or Fred Clark asks that we take them down.

TBAT has added a link (second from the top of the sidebar) to the Patheos Left Behind archives that contain the Left Behind articles that have been removed from this site.

---

 

The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[Lunch Meat]

I don't have any holiday article ideas, but one thing another blog I frequent (Cake Wrecks) did a few years ago was feature a different charity each day of December and ask all the readers to donate $1 to each of them. I think this would be a really cool idea for us to do because it would bring different needs/charities to our attention that we may not have heard of before, and we could give donations in the name of the Slacktiverse to needs that are important to us. Would this be too much trouble for TBAT to manage, and is anyone else interested in doing this?

[MercuryBlue]

*Googles Hogmanay* Ooh shiny.

Lunch Meat: Heard of philanthroper.com? It's basically the same idea, except every weekday of the year. One dollar buys one brick of a hospital in somewhere-did-we-ever-figure-a-polite-way-to-say-Third-World?, that's my personal favorite.

[Pthalo]

Your first post is spam. What an auspicious beginning.

[EColeman]

I hate to be contrary, but right now a whole bunch of Muslims are celebrating the end of Ramadan. Of course, the only reason I know is because I'm one of only two non-Muslims at my work and I spent yesterday rather lonely while they were all off partying and praying.

[Mmy]

@EColeman: Not sure if you are complaining or annoyed from the text of your comment. It sounds a little strange -- (imagining someone saying that a whole bunch of Christians are off partying and praying to celebrate the end of Advent.)

[Literata]

EColeman: Did you perhaps mean to suggest that TBAT could have said something like "The _primary Western_ holiday season _around the end of December_ is still a ways off..."?

[MercuryBlue]

End of December? Try Halloween through New Year's. I worked in a mall once from mid-October to mid-January. I got so sick of Christmas carols...

[Kit Whitfield]

If any Muslim members would like to submit articles, whether about a Muslim perspective or anything else, I for one would be delighted to read them.

[Mmy]

@Literata: Aha, yes I didn't realize that it could be read that way.

The primary point of the post (from the TBAT point of view) is that our families will be celebrating and busy in the next few months and therefore we appreciate being given more lead time to edit and prepare stuff.

[Will Wildman]

somewhere-did-we-ever-figure-a-polite-way-to-say-Third-World?

The mainstream term in development economics is 'less-developed country' (LDC), or if you're of a radical bent, 'underdeveloped country', which carries the connotation that underdevelopment is an unnatural state resulting from more-developed countries mucking around with smaller economies for personal gain (through institutions like the IMF, or just good old greedy transnational corporations).

But that's jargon that won't necessarily carry the same connotations outside the field, so I don't know how well it works as a go-to term.

(Best exchange in Alternative Macroeconomics class ever -
Me [as the punchline to a joke that made sense in context]: Professor, have you ever been to Uganda?
Prof: Yes. I was part of the team led by [famous professor] who went there shortly after the revolution to outline a national economic plan for the new government before any of the IFIs showed up. My job was to design their healthcare funding plan. We were driven to our hotel by sixteen-year-old soldiers carrying assault rifles.
Me [preparing to shut up]: ...Wow.)

[MercuryBlue]

I shall remember that. Thank you. And enough people are familiar with the terms 'developing country' and 'developed country' that the idea should get across, I think.

[sarah]

@Will: Does the term "developing nation" carry connotations? That's the one I hear a lot.

[sarah]

Oh, oops. Just saw MB's comment. That's what I get for not reading.

[Froborr]

On a related topic, do we *have* any Muslim commenters? I know Madhamatic (sp?) was Muslim, but zie doesn't seem to be around much any more... I ask because I was talking to a friend of mine (who is not a regular here) about the upcoming Atheism 101, and then I told him about the Paganism 101, and he expressed possible interest, if we needed and wanted it, with helping out with an Islam 101.

[MercuryBlue]

Madhabmatics posts regularly on Patheos.

Is the Atheism 101 going up today, or is it still in line-edits?

[Will Wildman]

I think Madhabmatics posts on Patheos!Slacktivist more often than Slacktiverse, but I recall at least one other person here identified themselves as Muslim recently, and with any luck there are various others who just haven't felt the need to spell it out, or who read but don't post.

Given that we are lacking in Muslim representation among the regulars (compared to a lot of other religions, or atheism) I'd be even more in favour of an Islam 101 if we had any willing contributors, since it's an area where we're less likely to have someone in every conversation who can catch misconceptions or what have you.

[sarah]

Islam 101 would be much appreciated if we have any people who'd share.

I'm interested, actually, in Islam and the African-American community--here in Philly, I see a lot of women in hijabs and sometimes with niqabs as well (I'm getting my terms correct, right?), and there are a couple of Muslim community centers in my neighborhood. The local black Muslim community is something I should really read up on; I'm woefully undereducated with regards to them.

[Madhabmatics]

Little known fact: If you say my name three times in a thread, I turn into a bat and fly directly towards it!

Just kidding, I'm still lurking, I'm just watching my posting because Patheos has taught me that I'm pretty easily provoked into posting and I've got to be double careful. Also I'm still a little embarrassed about posting in the [i]wrong thread[/i] and then having my internet go out for a month so I couldn't apologize. Woops. Sorry!

I'd be happy to write up some Islam Basics and submit them to the Moderation Staff, but it'd be a kind of irreverent breaking-down with a list of books that treat the subject in deeper detail if that's okay. It kind of has to be, since there are so many splits in Islam - even accepted splits! - that just saying "Well, Islam is like this" will end up with your ears being boxed by Shia or Ismailis or Ahmadiyyas.

[Lonespark]

Well, I thought the way we (hahaha, I say that having not actually written any part of it) did the Paganism 101 was a good approach/format for people from diverse traditions.

[Lonespark]

I think other Muslim commenters included Fitcher's Bird and bulbul, but I have no idea if they're still around.

[Madhabmatics]

I'm totally going to pretend you actually wrote any part of it, Lonespark. Which part will always be a mystery to me, though.

Also if Froborr's friend is really excited about it he can go ahead and write it and I'll just post in the thread, it's all good! Or we could imitate the cool paganism thing with multiple voices. I'm a Khaled Abou el Fadl type of guy, so if he's from a different tradition that'd be nifty.

[Ruby, on the go]

@MercuryBlue--Ooo, I was wondering about Atheism 101, too.

And I think Islam 101 would be fascinating.

[Froborr]

I'll talk to my friend, but he just went back to grad school, so he probably would not be available to write anything until December.

[cjmr]

bulbul's not been around in YEARS! (He last posted to his own blog in April.)

[Fitcher's Bird]

I am still around yes, but tend to do the second-guessing myself and then giving up in frustration thing too much to comment. (BTW Lonespark, it really made my day that I'd posted enough to be remembered.)

Technically I don't strictly identify as Muslim but I was raised and live with them (I have a post lurking around my hindbrain about my journey towards apostasy.) I would be happy to take part in an Islam 101 though, perhaps more on the community side (British Asian) than the theology as I feel there are probably many posters who know the theory better than I do.

[Phoenix]

If any Muslim members would like to submit articles, whether about a Muslim perspective or anything else, I for one would be delighted to read them.

Very soundly nth'd by me. I'd love to read more about Islam, related traditions, etc.

Would general suggestions for posts be out of place in this thread? Because I have three that I would love to read and aren't feasible for me to take on personally. But they have nothing to do with holidays, so if we're sticking with season-specific ideas today, I don't want to derail.

[Lonespark]

D'oh! Sorry for getting that slightly wrong, Fitcher's Bird. And you are definitely memorable.

[Lonespark]

I like the idea of post suggestions, but I don't know if this is the thread for it.

[Amaryllis]

Posting this here, because I have a moment to vent but do not wish to interrupt the discussion on the other thread...

This is a direct transcription of the phone call from my husband, who called me at work to say:
"They've finally turned the power back on. I checked the refrigerator and the TV; I brought the first computer up and checked the network; I'm bringing up the second computer...looking good...okay, it looks like everything is back to normal...why is there water dripping on my head?...shit, there's water coming through the ceiling...dammit..." *click*

Grrr.

Later, maybe.

[MercuryBlue]

Phoenix: I say go for it.

[Phoenix]

I like the idea of post suggestions, but I don't know if this is the thread for it.

Phoenix: I say go for it.

Oh dear. Indecision, I haz it.

[MercuryBlue]

Flip a coin? Pick another open thread? Ask TBAT?

[Mmy]

@MercuryBlue: This is a good thread to post them on -- they might get lost elsethread.

[Phoenix]

I'd prefer a nod from TBAT, to be honest. I'm not ordinarily so timid, but I work hard on this particular forum to be respectful of both the topic at hand and my fellow posters.

It doesn't really matter either way, I can easily wait for the next open thread or the next request for post ideas to come out if non-holiday post ideas are inappropriate on this thread.

[Phoenix]

Ah, see, all I had to do was wait another ten seconds and Mmy would have answered. Thanks, Mmy!

General ideas for post topics:

-I'd like to hear from [a] member[s] of TBAT regarding how their experience with this community has changed now that they choose to balance moderator/editor duties with posting as regular members. I continue to be impressed by their hard work and just wonder how their experience of the dual identity is going for them. Of course, this may or may not be something they feel like discussing for everyone. It's just an idea.

-Fatism 101 (not sure that's the right term for it - but basically, a post about what fat-shaming looks like in our society, the harm it does, general awareness-raising about it)

-Sexism 101 (this has probably been suggested before)

[Mmy]

waves at Phoenix.....:)

I would love, love, love to see a really good 101 on fat-shaming and body policing. Shakesville does some good stuff but they rather explicitly don't do 101s

[ZMiles]

"why is there water dripping on my head?...shit, there's water coming through the ceiling..."

I feel your pain, Amarylis. I came home from work yesterday to find that one of my light fixtures was leaking water onto my kitchen floor. I guess Coleridge was right about water being everywhere.

On topic: I'd be happy to write a post, either about taking joy in the holidays as a secular person, or about the joy my family gets from traditional religious ritual (specifically, lighting the menorah, as ethnically we are Jewish) even though none of us believe.

[Mmy]

why is there water dripping on my head?...shit, there's water coming through the ceiling...

Apartment building I lived in -- the pipe leading into the toilet in one apartment burst and flooded that apartment, and the next apartment.......and then we realized that it was going to drip into the apartment below. The tenant was away at the moment but he worked designing computer programs and had many different machines (without which he could not work) in the apartment. Landlady unlocked the door for us and we grabbed all the garbage bags we could to cover the computers.

[Fitcher's Bird]

No worries, Lonespark. I'm not sure I made it clear myself earlier (it can muddy up a discussion detailing exactly how I differ) but I felt a disclaimer was necessary before I set myself up as the voice of Slactiverse Muslimah. (Madhadmatics, apologies if I'm wrong in thinking of you as male.)

(Also apologies to all for the excessive use of parentheses. (at least I've kept from double... oops.))

[Brin]

Fitcher's Bird: (Also apologies to all for the excessive use of parentheses. (at least I've kept from double... oops.))

Ah, parentheses. Almost as fun as footnotes*.
(On a related note, why did none of my grammar textbooks acknowledge the existence of the semicolon**? I've had to work out how to use them entirely from real-world settings, and I've probably made a bunch of errors because of that.)

*I must admit, my diary entries became significantly less tricky to read when I picked up the use of footnotes from the Slacktisphere. Having multiple ways of sticking in more comments means less chance of overuse of any one thing. Asides marked off with dashes are nice as well.

**It's possible they did and it went in one eye and out the other.

[Pthalo]

Basic primer in semi-colons: They are a lot like periods (you can only use them where it is also okay to use a period: both parts have to be full sentences by themselves.) They are used to join sentences that have so much in common that they are really both part of the same thought; people are usually inclined to use commas for this function, but this is incorrect usage. I think that it's also correct to use them in really complicated lists where the list items themselves contain commas, something like: I like apples, oranges, and peaches; dawn, dusk, and twilight; foreign films, plays, and operas.

[Mmy]

Want to have fun with semicolons? The rules are not the same in all the various English writing communities. Two of the members of my dissertation committee could not agree on the use of semicolons. If I changed my usage to make one member happy the other member would erupt in grammatical fury.

I ended up rewriting most of my dissertation so that there were no longer semicolons.

[DS]

Re: 101s, is anybody still interested in Buddhism 101?

[Deird, who is a grammar nerd]

Last night, I was helping my friend look at her "matches" on an internet dating site, and she was cracking up laughing at me, because I kept judging her matches based on their use of semicolons...

[Pthalo]

Buddhism 101 sounds like a good read. I really want to learn more about it.

Mmy, that's terrible. :( Semi-colons are important and all that, except in the grand scheme of things. Couldn't they find anything to say about the substance of your dissertation?

[Mmy]

@DS: Yes I am sure there would be lots of people interesteed in a Buddhism 101

@Pthalo: Couldn't they find anything to say about the substance of your dissertation?

Oh yes, but the self-imposed job of dissertation committees is to make your life miserable :)
Actually the amount of time spent on making various suggestions had nothing to do with seriousness of the issue involved. There were suggestions made as to pooling the two datasets, I was challenged as to whether "nugatory" is actually a word (it is), criticized for using Canadian/British spelling and grilled as the choice of independent variables used in the loglinear analysis.

[MercuryBlue]

N+1ing the request for Buddhism 101 and the 101 on fat-shaming et al, and if the latter intends to include material on shaming of any non-ideal body size (whatever the hell 'ideal body size' is), I'd be happy to help. (Trigger warning, eating disorders: I yo-yo between 'skinny side of healthy for my height and body type' and 'dear, are you sure you don't have bulimia?' My grandmother actually said words to that effect once.)

I'm not sure we need another Sexism 101 in the world; there are plenty of Feminism 101s that cover the same ground. But if y'all want a Sexism 101, don't let me stop you.

[Pthalo, the language geek]

mmy, *hugs* (for other stuff)

the English department at the university I went to here in Hungary had a policy that you could write in whatever dialect of English you wanted, as long it was internally consistent. I was allowed to look at my entrance exam some time after I'd been admitted -- it was mostly an examine to make sure I knew English well enough to be studying it at a university level, and as a native speaker, I naturally passed it (since it was testing comprehension and ability to produce language, not meta-knowledge like "how many tenses does English have?" which I wouldn't have been able to answer at the time). I got a 96%, but there was a note that the questions I had missed were all consistent with American english and were thus not really incorrect.

Now, I speak a sort of International English -- pronunciation has drifted into the territory of British English; my spelling has too, though I retain some Americanisms (like writing "period" instead of "full stop" above. And I never say "inverted commas") but my accent drifts further depending on who I'm talking to. You hear people saying "willage" for "village"* often enough and you start saying it too.

*This is an interesting form of overcorrection. At first, all w's are pronounced as v, since Hungarian has no w sound. Once the learner learns to pronounce the English w, they still consider it a difficult sound, and are so worried about say "vee" for "we" that they accidentally use their new found w even in places where v is correct.

[Lunch Meat]

I wouldn't mind a 101 on any appearance-shaming (such as yellow/crooked teeth, blemished skin) but if we want to keep it specific that's fine with me too.

And yes, I would love to see both an Islam 101 and a Buddhism 101.

[Brin]

Pthalo: Now, I speak a sort of International English -- pronunciation has drifted into the territory of British English; my spelling has too, though I retain some Americanisms (like writing "period" instead of "full stop" above. And I never say "inverted commas") but my accent drifts further depending on who I'm talking to.

The somber* colours of the tires are easily recognised.
(The English I usually see here in Canada does have elements of both British and American, but not the same mixture that I've ended up with. I was partially raised in America and consume lots of British entertainment**, and these influence me as well.)

*Mind you, I do use "centre", "litre", and "metre". "Somber" is a rare enough word that during my major dialect shifts I wasn't aware it was one of those words that changes order of r and e depending on dialect.

**I played Runescape from a young age, and for several years didn't know that I wasn't "supposed" to spell "axe" with an e. Finding out didn't stop me.
Also, British books are often not localised for sale in Canada. My Canada-bought Discworld books are full of verbs ending in "-ise". Our copy of Charlie Bone and the Red Knight even has a price tag in pounds. (Had to look up that "brolly" was short for umbrella.)