One effect of living within the ideological bubble of the Men’s Rights movement is what you might call ideological inflation: MRAs start off believing, for example, that women don’t face discrimination today, in the developed world — an idea that’s wrong enough to start with. But then, surrounded by other delusional MRAs who reinforce their every wrong notion, the denizens of the Men’s Rights bubble come to believe that women haven’t ever been discriminated against anywhere and at any time in the history of the world. (You may recall those evil cavewomen who sat around eating prehistoric bon bons while the men hunted the mammoth to feed them.)
And that leads to things like the following video, in which the FeMRA video maker who calls herself The Wooly Bumblebee declares war on a pair of “Misandric Pants” she bought for her daughter by accident.
Yep, that’s right, she’s furious because one fucking percent of the proceeds made from selling these pants goes to a charity fighting against the very real discrimination and oppression that girls face all over the globe. You know, like being denied educations because they’re girls. Like being forced into child marriages with adult men. Like being forced into prostitution as children. That sort of thing.
Apparently girls don’t suffer from being repeatedly raped as children. But boys are totally oppressed because a tiny portion of the profits from a pair of pants goes to a charity that talks about, and tries to do something about, the shit girls have to endure because they are girls.
pillowinhell, you getting a constant “You can buy this in Oz” is the definition of irony, ‘cos pretty well everything I want is only available online to US customers. I had a minor shitfit a while back when the Pyramid clothing collection decided I couldn’t even READ its website from my location. Their loss, I’d have spent serious money with them.
Hey bring that lumberjack gear with you, we want to make Pierre feel at home if he ever visits downunder again,
Kiwigirl – I’m pretty safe from feline interference, I’m perched up on my computer chair with my stuff on the laptop (a crappy old desk just big enough for it and the printer underneath). Mads has never shown any interest in jumping up here.
::looks over shoulder in case of sudden attack of Feline Perversity is about to strike::
Apparently there was some sort of decree that only Knitting, crocheting or quilting is allowed as a fibre arts hobby in Canada. I mean, I can see why those crafts are popular here, but can we not branch out a bit?
You’re looking for very fine or rather heavy crochet yarn? I got a store about five blocks from me that sells only crochet stuff. Hooks too, some of them look better for tatting than crochet work.
I’d love to learn how to crochet patterns, but I can’t decipher the damn books and my attempts look like cat toys after a really bad day.
I’m not a Canuck, but I live in Minnesota (which is almost Canada… kind of). I have a friend who dips french fries in syrup, but I’m not sure if it’s a local thing or if I just have a weird friend.
A timely maple syrup conversation! Does it go well on porridge? (I’m told that our porridge is more like what USians would call creamed wheat than oatmeal. It’s not coarse.)
I’ve only ever had the fake kind of maple syrup, which was too sweet and artificial tasting, but I like maple candy so I’m curious if I’d like the real thing better. It sounds like people use it the way people use marmalade in the UK, ie. on savory as well as sweet things, especially savory breakfast things.
Maple syrup? You can make lollipops, add it to coffee, roast hams in it, pour it onto snow and eat it, maple syrup cheese cake(my personal fav) bake it with porkchops and yams, maple walnut cakes/muffins/donuts, flavor toffee.
Ooh, toffee sounds interesting.
Maple syrup definately goes on porridge! And oatmeal!
And yes, it used for savory dishes as well. You could bake apples or pears in syrup.
Um yeah, the real stuff is better by a mile. Not so saccharine. Also, you can get different grades. Most syrup is table syrup, but you can get syrups for baking/cooking (not so sweet) and candy making too.
@kitteh, the cat always finds a way. Always. Mine are known to sit behind the sofa quietly and then jump up behind me. which gives me a huge fright.
@pillowinhell, I am a frequent customer of Mary Maxim, Interweave, Annie’s Attic (the reason I got a US shipping address as they won’t mail international), Lionbrand, Redheart, and Herrschners. I’ve come to crochet from knitting, have knitted for > 30 years and only attempted a round DC cat blanket with left over oddments of yarn when I was about 15. There are two types of pattern: visual crochet, which shows you the piece in layout form, and typed pattern. Most patterns are the latter, which I am fine with as I am used to reading knitting patterns.
Some of the stuff I find difficult, especially Doris Chan patterns where she doesn’t do things like tell you the number of repeats in between ongoing shaping, so you really need to understand how a garment (for example) is supposed to look in a pattern so you can see where to do things. I am basically up to being able to do this now, but it’s taken around 2 years to get here.
My hooks from Mary Maxim arrived this week, so I can get onto the beaded crochet necklace I was wanting to do after Xmas, but didn’t have small enough hooks (http://downloads.anniesattic.com/detail.html?prod_id=86834&cat_id=1105). It’s done in 4 pieces, two per side, and I have not done any beaded crocheting before so this will be a new ability for me. But I have bought the Annie’s Attic video tutorial on beaded crochet.
If you want to learn crochet, there are a number of very good learning books out there. Lionbrand is also a good site for tips and patterns for a range of abilities. And, I swear, YouTube must have been invented for teaching people new crafting skills – and it’s all free. 🙂
Well, we all know that great Karl Max quote, “You have nothing to lose but your pants!”
Basically anything you might use sugar or honey for you can substitute maple syrup for.
Maple syrup milk.
I drizzle it over brownies, before putting them in the oven
OMG, yes, try the real stuff! Fake “maple” syrup bears about as much resemblance to the real thing as store-brand chocolate chips do to a Godiva truffle. The difference is like night and day (which was an endless source of annoyance to both me and my mother when I was a kid, because she couldn’t afford the real stuff and I wouldn’t eat the fake stuff).
LoL! And Marx should know! How many times did he habe to pawn his families clothes?
Misandric pants, huh? I wonder if Wooly Bumblebee will be wearing her finest tinfoil hat and bib when she returns the offending pants and no doubt goes on a paranoid rant to the salesperson.
Quickly, in the rough order the topics have been covered:
Add me to the sperm-count jeans assumption list!
JustACheeto, you sound like you’d fit right in! Get ready for your life to disappear into a vortex of refreshing to get silly jokes or recipes or cat stories or troll smackdowns.
Australia’s some sort of homeschooling mecca too, both for the religious nutjobs and the uber-left anarchist unschooling types. Not quite sure on the details.
Maple syrup is delicious but expensive and doesn’t work well with moustaches.
The combination of the cutesy voice and video editing with the batshit sentiment and sudden sweariness is really disturbing, too.
“Maple syrup is delicious but expensive and doesn’t work well with moustaches.”
I am so glad I finished that mouthful of tea before reading that statement.
I’ll have a look for maple syrup, then, though I have a horrid suspicion that Coles and Woolworths (only supermarkets near me) will only have fake garbage. First time I tried alleged maple syrup was at the Pancake Parlour some thirty years ago. I expected it to be a bit like golden syrup, but it was this thin, rather flavourless stuff. But eh, who’d expect Scientologists to care about getting maple syrup right?
Maple syrup + breakfast sausages = win.
I dunno if anyone else has said this (bleh, I’m doing an assignment which involves writing an article about 50 Shades of Grey and I can feel my brain cells dying as I examine my totally legal copy) but maple syrup fudge is tasty as all.
Thanks to all who’ve welcomed me. Jokes and cat stories and troll smackdowns sound wonderful. That goes double for recipes. I’m currently doing the college thing and expanding my cooking skills beyond put-a-vegetable-in-your-ramen has been a lot of fun so far.
You might be better off going to a health food store for maple syrup or a farmers market then. Sounds like the idiots you bought from didn’t bother to boil the syrup down enough. So what you had was sap.
Kittehs, it is all about practice getting the angle and the swoop right. Here is a link to a tutorial. http://www.firemountaingems.com/beading_howtos/beading_projects.asp?docid=691D&doccat=tutorials
Maybe we should establish the Manboobz Trade Consortium. I can supply the crochet, knitting and maple syrup supplies if the resident Aussies can send me the needles flosses and tools for embroidery.
@kittehhelp
Well, if your moustache is of the type handled like grass (all the same length) rather than in the older style (all coming to the same line), and the ends aren’t any longer than the rest, you’d probably be fine. Cops, muslims, gay men from the ’70s, and globetrotting Quebecois misandrists with unusual career paths can probably have all the maple syrup they like, no problem.
Anything that calls to mind “cavalier” or “raconteur” or anything else frenchy doesn’t suit the stuff though