I know, this pic is a little old. But I still think it’s funny!
Anyway, here’s a somewhat belated Open Thread for Non-Personal Stuff. As always, Open Threads are CLOSED to MRAs/trolls, etc.
Categories
Open Thread for non-personal stuff, Sept. 2015 Amazing Cat Box Edition
leftwingfox: That game looks great!
@ brittersweet I can’t stop reading that thread now.
Just noticed that MoonMetropolis tipped off David regarding his own site and drivel.
Dollars to donuts that the threadsplode in discussions was also him?
@pi I’ve heard two different versions of the Issac is all the characters one (which I belive, I mean Mary is just him in a wig we see him get :p )
One is that he just takes on the traits of famous religious people since the game has roots in relgion, and the other is that they are actually dead brothers and sisters who he is pretending to be, and everyone in the family has biblical names.
There is also the theory that the enimies are you dead brothers and sisters, at least the humonoid ones.
@spindrift and ej
thanks guys. I get the joke now lol :p
@WWTH:
Bragg and his friends, faced with the stark fact that the electorate is hostile to their views and the Left has moved on as a whole, were faced with the unappealing choice between irrelevance or compromise. They chose irrelevance, and have spent the last two decades trying to drag the mainstream Left into irrelevance with them. Anyone who puts ideological purity above pragmatism doesn’t belong in politics.
The fact that Corbyn chose to share a stage with him was disappointing. Corbyn, to his credit, stayed on-message and talked about immigrant issues because that was what the demo was about.
Bragg chose to mostly ignore those and instead use it as a platform to urge a hardline hijacking of the entire labour movement. I have not been a supporter of his before and I continue to not be a supporter of his now.
http://m.smh.com.au/national/unmasking-a-troll-aussie-jihadist-australi-witness-a-20yearold-american-nerd-20150909-gjil47.html
Have you guys read this yet? And can someone email it to david? I think it falls under both the general intrest of the site and he tried to discredit feminist, although that isn’t what this price focused on.
@Robjec: Already done 🙂
I’m borrowing Shadow of Mordor from my cousins so you can all call me Ranger McBadass for the week.
@Ranger McBadass
Tell me how it works out! I was interesting in getting a copy myself.
@reallyfriendly
Will do.
XOXO,
Ranger McBadass
@leftwingfox
Oh. my. goodness. That does look good! How did you know I’m a huge geek about boardgames too 8p
I will definitely give that a spin. My major post may be covering some great boardgames (they are making a huge comeback).
Thanks for the heads-up!
@ Ellesar “I do not know radfems in person, but have frequented radfem blogs. I have left most of them because of this. It is rather ironic as Andrea Dworkin herself was in no way anti trans. But I don’t usually bother pointing this out – if they do not accept trans inclusivity is possible within radical feminism I am certainly not going to argue with them!”
I’m not familiar enough with Andrea Dworkin to effectively argue that she wasn’t anti-transgender, but I’ve mentioned that to them, and they strongly disagree.
I think what it comes down to is that feminists choose to support or antagonize transgender people, and then they can try to mold feminist thought either way. It makes my blood boil when they choose to do the latter.
@skiriki
Thanks
@reallyfriendly
My friend got it and said it was a lot of fun to dirst, but that the game play gets repetitive pretty fast and the story was only ok. Neat if you don’t know much about the extended universe but weird because they add in their own stuff and kind of cliche anyways. Plus if you do get it get it on a pc or current Gen system, since last Gen can’t run the full nemesis system and lose a lot of the fun for it. (He had it on Xbox one so that wasn’t an issue)
Oh and now i see that people were discussing that story just last night :p
Won’t, Won’t, Won’t You Go
(Sung to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”)
Won’t, won’t, won’t you go
your own way right now.
Stop telling me I’ll miss you.
There’s the door, ciao, ciao.
Not a Brit but…
…I’m very excited that Jeremy Corbyn won as leader of the Labour party! And he says that women will make up half of his shadow cabinet (it’s a shadow cabinet because Labour is not in power right now).
Congratulations, Great Britain!
@Alan
That sounds like an absolutely perfect environment for predators and creeps. Is there room for a discussion about how maybe that’s not ideal?
Also: James Blake is being super-classy about his brush with police brutality. My hat’s off to him: I don’t think I could remain anywhere near this collected in his position.
@ POM
There certainly is.
There are now policies on place to deal with such things. With professional clients (i.e. solicitors) the complainant can also just let the offender know that they find the behaviour unacceptable and ask them to stop.
If that doesn’t work there is a mechanism to bring the problem to the attention of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (which the woman in this case has also done). The SRA can then investigate and sanction the perpetrator.
With lay clients (i.e. the regular punters) it’s more tricky. There are two rules at the Bar that are completely sacrosanct.
The “Cab Rank” rule – i.e. you can’t pick and choose clients. You must represent anyone who wishes to engage your services.
Legal Privilege – all communications (other than ones where the client and the lawyer are jointly involved in criminal activity) are completely confidential. The Privilege belongs to the client and only the client can waive that privilege. That’s so strong a rule that even where a client sues a barrister for negligence, unless the client waives privilege, the barrister cannot say what the client’s instructions were or what they told the barrister.
So yes, that does put barristers in a difficult position, but that’s one of the things that goes with the privilege of being allowed to practice. The creeps and the perverts are entitled to legal representation.
Ironically solicitors can pick and choose clients; they don’t have the cab rank rule. So that’s an option for people who want that freedom. No one is forced to become a barrister.
Doctors have the same problems. A black surgeon can’t refuse to operate on a BNP member even if they’re hurling abuse at them prior to the operation.
@ Kat
The irony is that Corbyn is being slated in the (former?) left wing press as some sort of misogynist because he beat the women candidates. If you’ve been following the campaign though you won’t find that surprising. He’s been slurred at every juncture; mainly by his supposed colleagues.
Corbyn: “I like puppies”
The Labour Party: “Puppies are evil; they’ll ruin the economy and hand the keys of the country to the Soviets”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/12/jeremy-corbyn-not-one-female-voice
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/13/women-politics-power-labour-leadership-jeremy-corbyn
@Alan
I’ve actually now read what I believe is the originating story, and I don’t actually see how any of this applies to the story in question. She was sent what appears to be a completely unsolicited message on LinkedIn, not from a professional contact or a client, but from some random. Is there some context here that I haven’t found?
However, even if it’s irrelevant as I believe, it’s still an interesting discussion.
We had a similar discussion here in Kentucky, with respect to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. There were a couple of cases in a row of children in foster care dying from abuse, and there was outrage and hearings and such, which is exactly what should have happened before the deaths but okay, post hoc is better than nothing I guess.
There’s an inherent tension there, between confidentiality and accountability. Accountability requires some level of transparency. Confidentiality requires the absence of transparency. One wants a child in foster care to have their information held in complete confidence, but confidence and the secrecy it requires are the perfect cover for abuse.
There is an important dialogue to be had with respect to how these rules about confidentiality were organized when the dominant gender in the public sphere was the male one, and how these rules are therefore organized from a male perspective. Men don’t have to worry about abuse to the same degree as women or children. Men can value secrecy and confidence to a degree that women and children aren’t necessarily able to. Therefore, great weight and value are attached to something (confidence) that men are generally able to utilize without a problem, even though women and children are not. The needs of women and children are devalued in favor of the thing that men are (let’s say) privileged to be able to value.
An ideal world would see women and children able to utilize secrecy and confidence with the same safety as men, but we don’t live in that world right now.
An ideal world would also not see kids in foster care stigmatized for being in foster care, so hiding their identity would not be necessary in the slightest, but we don’t live in that world either.
Kentucky did not manage to square this circle, and I have not been able to either, so don’t let me pretend to be doing anything but musing.
@ POM
No, you’re not missing anything. The irony is that he used a professional network in an unprofessional manner. However that confidentiality thing is so ingrained. That’s what has made people uneasy in the profession with her actions.
It doesn’t matter that it was a semi-unsolicited contact. Say you came to me and said “Hey, I’ve just done an armed robbery, any advice?”. It’s irrelevant that you approached me.
If you’re not in the profession it can be hard to get across just how strong this commitment to confidentiality is. Don’t forget, transparency is *NOT* something that lawyers should be considering; quite the opposite. We’re not government officials. We act solely for the best interests of our clients. It’s not our place to judge them or hold them to any sort of standard.
The woman is question is aiming for a career in Human Rights law. In view of her actions though could she now be trusted to represent a rapist for example? Would she do her job, or would she decide that her personal feelings should come first?
Frankly? I would be first in line to hire her. If she doesn’t value her own human rights, why should I think she’s going to value someone else’s?
Your comparison is also invalid. If I approached you for advice following my bank robbery, I would be approaching you in your capacity as a lawyer, looking for professional advice. This woman was approached in no professional context, as an attractive woman rather than as a lawyer. That is, in fact, the heart of the problem: she was seen solely as a pretty face, and not as a professional in any capacity. The contact was entirely personal and therefore should not be subject to any kind of professional courtesy or privilege. If he wanted professional privileges, he should have approached her professionally.
Believe me, I actually do understand. I’m saying that we need to question why there is such immense value placed on confidentiality at all costs. Again: this woman was not approached as a professional, looking for lawyerlike advice. It was a bad come-on. We should not value confidence to such an incredible degree that men can make inappropriate comments to women in perfect safety and knowledge that this will never get out to affect their other relationships.
This is how abuse hides. This is why domestic violence could be a hilarious joke on The Honeymooners. The sanctity of the private sphere, and the absolute requirement that what happens in the home stays a complete secret, acted in the best interest of abusers, who by no coincidence were (and are) mostly men. What you’re saying to me (whether this is your intention or not) is that secrecy is so important in the legal profession that even non-lawyerly things should be shielded and protected, and by no coincidence this works in the best interests of the gender most likely to see no harm from this behavior, and most likely to be able to use it to inflict harm on others.
@ POM
I suppose it’s a general thing. There is meant to be a culture of confidentiality. If she feels she can breach that rule in this situation (she accepted that was the rule, but felt in the circumstances she could breach it) then how can she be trusted not to breach other rules when she feels it’s appropriate?
I completely understand why people, especially non-lawyers, can sympathise with her actions; but lawyers especially should understand that the rule of law is paramount; even if they think a law or rule is unjust and undesirable. That’s what we sign up to. Lay people can ignore rules they think are unjust, but lawyers are in a different position; otherwise the risk is anarchy.
Say she was asked to represent a rapist. The rapist told her that not only had they committed the offence charged, but had also carried out lots of rapes that the police didn’t know about. Should she breach privilege and tell the police?
I can see how many people would say she should; but when you sign up to be a lawyer you accept that you’re not allowed to do that.
I can see how people could argue that such people don’t deserve the benefit of the law; but where does it end? People are pretty down on terrorists; so we say they lose all their legal rights because they’re so despicable and there’s a danger to society. Well, we tried that; hence Guantanamo and Black Sites.
The thing with the law is that if we say scumbags can’t benefit, then the rights conferred are no longer universal. That is an argument that is quite popular. There’s a campaign here to get rid of our Human Rights Act because many people think it’s wrong that bad people have rights; especially when that’s at the expense of good people. That’s basically the argument in this case. It may well be that, as a result, the rules are modified.
@Alan
Again, you’re talking about things said in a professional context. This was not that.
Seriously, do you never talk about anything people say to you in everyday life? Because I know lawyers, and they do the chit chat just as well as other people. If I came up to you, out of nowhere, and chatted you up and told you about that time I was so disappointed to miss a Nickelback concert because tix were sold out 30 seconds after going up for sale, are you seriously telling me that you would not mention to anyone, anywhere in your life, at any time, that you’d met someone who actually admitted to liking Nickelback?
Because I honestly don’t buy that.