StrangeSox

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 02:00 PM) Oh ok, you can take things out of context and focus on only a few words but I can't. Got it. What? No, looking at it in a vacuum as you are is taking it out of context. Looking at it with the background of bigots frequently equating LGBT and bestiality is keeping it in context. When has Pope Francis equated LGBT to bestiality? I'm still waiting for you to substantiate your claims that they're saying the exact same things.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:56 PM) By still maintaining a position that homosexualty is a sin, he's linking it to bestiality and ever other "sin" he and the Church believe in. He doesn't need to expressly say it for it to be true. This only works as an excuse in a vacuum that ignores how LGBT is always linked to bestiality by bigots.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:49 PM) I don't know why you keep ignoring the other half of what he said which was everyone is a sinner, we don't judge, we love and respect everyone and let God judge later on. Because "I'm not a [racist/homophobe/sexist/etc.] but..." statements don't actually change what you've said. The Pope has been praised for his general move away from the ultra-conservative positions the church has been taking. People are happy to see movement in a positive direction, and that movement should be seen as good. I haven't seen anyone calling the Pope an advocate for LGBT, though. And again, no, they aren't saying the exact same things. Show me the quote where Pope Francis links LGBT to bestiality.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:46 PM) By saying it was a sin, like adultery and other things, sure. Like comparing the Cubs and Yankees as baseball teams. You know, that analogy sort of proves the point. He's likening being gay to animal f***ing, and let's not all pretend there isn't a lengthy, bigoted history behind that comparison.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:47 PM) I'm not going back over this with you, which is why i'm responding to wite's argument which was limited to just those words. You're ignoring most of what he said and the context of it so that you can pretend people are upset that he said the words "vagina" and "anus."

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:42 PM) But if Phil had started calling people f**gots I'd probably agree with you guys when you say it was all hateful speech. Only probably?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:44 PM) I can think of no good reason why adults can't use the worlds vagina and anus other than a fear of offending someone's sensibilities, which was a "conservative" issues for centuries that "liberals/progressives" always argued against. I don't know why you're only looking at one or two sentences of what he said. If he had only said "I prefer vaginas to anuses," it'd be weird and probably get some attention on pop media websites, but nobody would really care. You've also evaded the point that people wanting other people fired from their jobs over something they said is hardly limited to liberals/progressives.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:42 PM) Well that's another conversation, as I think a lot of that was overblown too. But if Phil had started calling people f**gots I'd probably agree with you guys when you say it was all hateful speech. But he didn't. He was telling a reporter in his home that he didn't understand why a man would like another man's butt when he could have a vagina, which he likes. You know what else he did? He compared it to bestiliaty. No, it's really not.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:37 PM) Now we've come full circle when liberals/progressives want our speech to be curbed for the sake of what, manners? Should women start covering up too? lolwut edit: you should familiarize yourself with the perpetual outrage machine that is Twitchy before trying to say it's a "liberals/progressives" thing.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:35 PM) Which is frankly a lot of bulls***. I watch the show and they've had at least one episode where they introduce Phil to a flaming homosexual pet photographer for the sole purpose of Phil's reaction. Back country, caked in mud redneck meets flamboyant, color coordinated "yuppie" from the city (yuppie being a phrase he uses all the time to describe anyone who doesn't live off the land) was the entire gag. A&E knew what they were dealing with and knew this would eventually happen. And frankly they're making a horrendous business mistake here. These guys are going to go to another network and A&E will be back to airing biographies from the 90's. A&E can control what gets on the air for an episode (apparently Phil has complained in the past that they cut out some religious stuff). Maybe they're trying to get a redneck stereotype reaction to a gay city boy, but they can control it.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:31 PM) If I publicly made similar comments I'd expect HR to be at my desk the next day and rightfully so. I think it'd be pretty s***ty if your employer fired you for comments you made elsewhere that were in no way related to your job, weren't made as a representative of the company and you weren't a public face of the company/brand. But they absolutely can fire you for that or less or nothing at all in most places.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 01:31 PM) Being vulger and being hateful are two different things. The argument wite appears to be making isn't that it was vulger, it was hateful, which is ludicrous. Having your sexual orientation once again compared to f***ing animals isn't just "vulgar." It was pretty explicitly hateful.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 12:53 PM) Why the f*** not? Seriously, is that how far we've come now? We can't even express to people what we like and don't like at the risk of offending someone? Jesus Christ. You're free to say just about whatever you want. Others are free to judge you based on that. I'm glad we've come far enough that expressions of homophobic and racial bigotry are widely decried. We're a better society when that garbage isn't able to be said in public without backlash. That said, I'll again go back to my initial posts and agree with wite in that I don't really like his being suspended over this. I'm sure A&E has some morality clause in the contract, and they absolutely have the power to fire him over this, but I generally oppose employers having such broad powers. What I find funny though are the people who #standwithphil are often the same people who approvingly post/forward those (fake) emails about the boss/owner who was going to fire all of his employees with Obama bumperstickers on his car.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 12:08 PM) I think this article is loaded as all hell and tries to connect very, very loose ends. Phil Robertson is an idiot. He is also incredibly naive or he is a great actor. Frankly, I could not care less. He probably did see nothing but happy blacks in Louisiana and he thought no different. He's not a senator or a mayor or anyone that holds any sort of public position. Let him believe what he wants to believe, and if you are smart, you will ignore it and allow the village idiot to believe what he wants to believe. My problem is not with Phil Robertson. My problem is when actual, intelligent people agree with him. I do not believe he should have been suspended, but everything he's said is incredibly ignorant on a deeper level. I shared my thoughts with someone close and they said "frankly, I agree with him." Yes, I personally find a woman's vagina more appealing as well - I'm guessing all straight males agree -but I don't go talking about it. First and foremost, you don't talk about any of that stuff publicly because it's simply not politically correct - frankly, it's disgusting. Of greater note, you don't talk about that stuff because it is highly offensive to the LBGT community. Trying to even come up with a comparison for what he said is impossible for me. To imitate his speaking style, it's like "Hey Phil - shut up. Just go shoot stuff. Dinner will be ready when you're back." I think someone in the comment thread on that TNC article did a good job of pointing that out. It's not Robertson himself that people are reacting to, really, but to the mindset he's representing with those comments. edit: some background, TNC has been writing about domestic terrorism used to further racial oppression for a while now, so there may be some context in his post that's missing if you haven't read his past pieces. He's basically using Robertson as a jumping off point of the mentality behind his words.

Phil Robertson's America

Anyone have a recommendation for a decent treadmill? My wife wants to get one after Christmas. Definitely don't need all of the bells and whistles, really just something that'll hold up and preferably can fold-up.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 08:58 AM) This is definitely annoying but 99% of it comes out of them screwing themselves with the website for several months, so those delays I get. Still wish Sebelius's job was replaced as a consequence though. I'm think they're waiting until the next session of Congress at this point instead of changing leadership while they're still scrambling to patch things up.

This is probably the one "change" or delay where they have the clearest authority to do so. There are arguments over the legality of the employer mandate delay and the "you can keep it" delay, though.

FWIW some local area high schools have been working on the concussion problem for years. I took an athletic training class in high school and our teacher was really excited about it. Here's an article from 2002 on their program http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-09...ting-first-test

The individual mandate is being (partially) delayed http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care...r-some-20131219

assuming there is a link between white matter and CTE, an increase from 7% in the general population to 11% in the sports population is a huge increase.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 03:36 PM) Wait, when did he say he wasn't aware? Oh right, because he was talking about his PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and wasn't giving a 25 minute stump speech on the severity of racism in Louisiana during the 50's and 60's. It doesn't take a 25 minute speech to say something non-offensive about Jim Crow. When asked about the Jim Crow south, he related a couple of personal anecdotes that are literally classic racial stereotypes of African Americans from that period and before. The fact is that just waking up each day in Louisiana in the 1950's and 60's, he was witness to explicit and legal racial oppression. Yet he's willfully blind to that, and instead likes to imagine it as happier times for everyone, and then goes on to decry welfare, which itself just gets into another racial stereotype. He could have said "I didn't personally see things as that bad where I was, but [...]" Instead he chose to describe how happy they all were, singing songs in the field, the happy negro stereotype that goes back to at least Uncle Tom's Cabin.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 03:24 PM) Again, not caring enough/appreciating the problem for your liking, so, racist. No, again, being completely unaware that there was actually a problem at all, so ignorant in the 50's and 60's and yeah, pretty much just racist in 2013. That statement in 2013 is just willful ignorance of the status of African Americans as 2nd class citizens in the Jim Crow era. It's white-washing a pretty horrible but factual history.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 03:19 PM) See my edit above. I can see his personal exposure being limited to the point where he didn't see the problem. That would be a pretty good example of "color blind" ignorant racial privilege if you didn't think Jim Crow was all that bad. These black farmers he describes as happy-go-lucky never got mistreated directly in front of him, but he doesn't even stop to consider the realities of racial segregation, vote suppression, etc. I know, there's an awful lot of ignorance out there!