Re: California Bound by Dovina	25-Sep-07/9:08 PM
this scans like its writer's on crack or worse -- is a blundering hack if you took off your gown and got down with the clown you'd make up for your wordsmithing lack
Re: a comment on All You Need Is Gloves by -=DIABETES=-	26-Apr-05/3:40 AM
The first rule of fight club is: don't talk about fight club.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	26-Apr-05/3:33 AM
hmmm, maybe it's a regional thing. It's when someone does some minor anti-social thing (xxx), and you say "Yeah, go ahead (or, SURE) -- xxx", heavily emphasizing the verb of xxx, and with either exaggerated sarcasm, or an air of "Fine. Be that way." Long live the mandative tense! It is vital that all good grammarians play their role in encouraging proper usage of subjunctive clauses. Hopefully, this is clear to all. If it were up to me, I would require that candidates applying for a driving license demonstrate correct usage of the subjunctive before being permitted to proceed to the physical driving test. In fact, I suggest we consider this idea carefully -- although I must add: were a better way suggested, I'd happily throw my weight behind it.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	24-Apr-05/6:43 PM
In the interest of full disclosure, I don't actually think there is a correlation between being simpleminded and whining. I've encountered stupid stoics & intelligent stoics, stupid whiners, and intelligent whiners. I tend to get labeled a diva myself, ie, someone who sometimes whines aggressively but who's whining is generally tolerated because of a high level of efficacy.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	24-Apr-05/6:17 PM
"is a person who tags any less of a pimple-writing simpleton than than a person who complains about being tagged?" I don't know, are they? The question has no relevance for me. I don't (and didn't in my comment) equate "complains about being tagged" with "pimple writing simpleton" One can infer from my comment that I may be of the opinion that pimple writing simpleton's (P) have a tendency to complain about how they get tagged as a result of the pimples they wrote (C) ie; one can infer I probably believe the premise "P (somewhat) implies C" Given that premise, the conclusion "C implies P" is a logical fallacy I personally would not make; since what you posit is built on your incorrect assumption of faulty logic on my part, I have no response for it. I will point out that I didn't actually "tag" you as whining until the point where you started meta-whining. As far as your meta-meta-whine, it seems actually less like whining to me than rote flogging of a dead horse, the "I know you are but what am I" singsong into which all arguments eventually devolve when the combatants have nothing meaningful left to say. See? I just did it myself.
Re: All You Need Is Gloves by -=DIABETES=-	24-Apr-05/8:30 AM
It should be "all you need ARE gloves", and "gloves ARE all you need". Apart from that, it's kind of catchy. In fact, I could even imagine it being set to some kind of pop tune and working as a lyric.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	24-Apr-05/8:19 AM
Ok, zodiac, the rules of language (which my posting history demonstrates are as important to me as they are to you) come not from God™ but from common usage. If something has become common usage, it's not really fair to deliberately refuse to interpret it by its common usage and insist it be interpreted according to rules that applied before it became common usage.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	24-Apr-05/8:06 AM
Whatever you say, people who hear it will interpret it in a context that is necessarily different than the context you perceived when you uttered it -- because they are not you in your time and place. If you haven't thought about the various contexts in which people may interpret your words and are surprised and/or hurt by their interpretations, that is your failing. This applies to you no less than to the pimple-writers.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	24-Apr-05/7:59 AM
So? Newsflash: no one at all can say anything at all or take any position whatsoever about anything without automatically being tagged in some incorrect way. Even attempts not to take a position will result in your being tagged. Even complete silence will be interpreted and result in your being tagged. That is a fundamental characteristic of human society and the nature of discourse between humans. All you're doing is whining again. Instead of addressing the tags and the reasons people give for tagging, you are whining about being "incorrectly tagged" when you should know full well that everyone gets "incorrectly tagged" no matter what they say.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	24-Apr-05/7:08 AM
NOTE: my comment might give the impression that harsh drug laws will automatically target Black people. In actual fact, drug use among the black population is roughly equal to that among the white population. It is the overwhelming evidence of selective enforcement that results in the drug laws being perceived as an anti-black pogrom.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	24-Apr-05/7:00 AM
You have to remember that that you come from a country that the rest of the world perceives as having an institutional anti-Black pogrom with wide public support, disguised as harsh drug laws. I'm not saying myself that it is true drug laws are deliberately designed to suppress the black population. But having lived in Europe for 4 years I can tell you that it is widely perceived as being deliberate. As a citizen of such a country, you should expect what you say to be interpreted in that context, and expect the reaction to be harsh, regardless of whether or not you yourself actually are prejudiced. Simply imagine the reaction to a writer from a fundamentalist Islamic country writing a poem sneering at how some woman has treated him, irregardless of how legitimate his beef was with the specific woman in his poem.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	24-Apr-05/6:36 AM
Kim Campbell
Re: Poets are dead! by Prince of Void	23-Apr-05/6:26 AM
Listen, this is how pathos works: exaggeration kills it. Big giant concepts kill it. Feel desolate? describing the world as a vast empire of desolation will not make us relate to your sense desolation. We can look around and see for ourselves that the world is not a stygian yard of nightmares; everything is not dead; nothingness does not have claws (how can nothingness have claws? nothingness is nothingness. Re-read Sartre and try to actually understand him this time instead of inanely using some of the words he uses). So when you describe the entire universe as somehow for some reason having as it's sole purpose the mirroring of your particular bad mood or bout of depression WE DON'T BUY IT. Little details create pathos. Describe the one little mournful detail in a generally indifferent world of sunny days and rainy days that occur at random; celebrations, wars, funerals, weddings, parties & columbus high school massacres that all occur at random with absolutely no regard for the psychological state of one teenager (I truly truly hope you are still a teenager) who's obsessed with darkness and paints his fingernails black. That one little detail that's personal is what will capture our attention, make us relate to your sense of desolation. You are not goth. Fear of Garbage is goth -- good goth. The difference between you and her is neatly captured in the difference in your nicknames. Yours: there's only one Prince of Darkness, or Prince of the Void. You are not him. You're a depressed teenager. A bazillion other depressed teenagers have already used your nickname in a bazillion dungeons & dragons game. It's so utterly non-original that you'd have seemed quirkier and more alienated if you nicknamed yourself Bob. Hers: Fear of Garbage, abbreviated to F.o.G. It's clever, and unique. It refers to the character of her writing on multiple levels -- both in its full & acronym form. And it manages to be at least as instantly recognizeable as goth as "Prince of Void" but without seeming pathetically absurd. If you intended this pome as a description of the last level of Diablo III then forgive me, I suppose it works reasonably well in that role. Though there's no mention of those things that eat corpses and then spit them at you. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual world that we actually live in. Not even metaphorically.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	22-Apr-05/4:50 PM
Our brains have evolved to have unconscious biases. In many ways these unconscious biases are incredibly advantageous, if not necessarily to us as individuals, to the propagation of our genes. At least, that was true in the past. In our current society, the biases and instincts we naturally tend to have/develop are often at odds with the ideals and values of society. What counts is not whether you have such incorrect biases and instincts. Virtually everybody does. What counts are the conscious choices you make about whether or not to align yourself with the values & ideals society is moving towards. And it is moving. Black people don't have equality in America, but they've more equality than they had a generation ago, and it's likely they'll have more equality in another generation than they do now. Perhaps even as much equality as they have in Canada and other more enlightened nations. Similarly, women do not yet have equality in America, but they have rather significantly more equality than they had a generation ago, and will likely have even more equality a generation from now. Perhaps by then America will have even had a female national leader, as several more enlightened nations have already. Health care is another excellent example. In the past, health care was grossly unequal but now most enlightened nations have some sort of system that provides access to health care to virtually all of their citizens. Even America has a rudimentary form of such a system that's available to most of it's citizens.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	22-Apr-05/4:17 PM
I'm saddened that you're withdrawing "as vernal as spring" as an epithet for me! I've really taken it to heart over the last year, relying on it (for example) on certain mornings, saying to myself, "No, today I'm not going to lie in bed until 11 and then phone the office and tell them to fuck off like I did yesterday, because I AM AS VERNAL AS THE SPRING and instead I am going to pop right out of bed, brew a java, have a shower, and be at my desk by 10:43" I even added it to my personal business card, in tiny italic print with quotes and an ellipsis, like so: M------ J--------- "...as vernal as the spring!" though lately I've taken to crossing it out with a purple gel roller and writing "fucking sanctimonious bastard" instead. My two cents: I don't want to defend the pome as a whole because the whining of white people who, even if they are lower middle class, are vastly wealthier & have life easier than at least 95% of people who ever lived or are currently alive annoys the fuck out of me BUT I do think most people would read the "Go ahead..." stanza not as telling someone what to do, but disgustedly mentioning something they have already done. You know, someone cuts you off and you say "yeah sure...CUT me off. Fucking bastard"
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	22-Apr-05/4:12 PM
mmm, my indignation isn't entirely mock. My sanctimony is mock...that's a real tough one to convey properly in print, mock sanctimony...I do it SO well in real life. But whining white people really do piss me off. Even though I'm white myself, and have my share of days where I feel all oppressed and life is just SO unfair blah blah blah...but I piss MYSELF off when I feel that way. This is the internet. If someone comes (as I do too) from a wealthy western nation whose population knows little hardship and enjoys enormous privelege and wealth compared to most of the world, how much of a bleeding idiot do you think they look like to the rest of the world when they start whinging on about oppression & hardship? Ever watch a movie that has a character who is the stereotypical spoiled whining complaining rich kid? Notice how by the end of the movie you're ready to cheer when something absolutely horrible happens to this character? We should all remember that. It's not something to take lightly.
Re: the solitary tree by bamf909	22-Apr-05/3:40 PM
God, I totally misread this. I thought it was about someone bravely continuing to practice autoerotica in a wheat field even after a bad experience with a puritanical neighbour and their genital shocking taser gun. Though if you really think about it, that is more or less exactly what you've described in your expository comment.
Re: a comment on Gaping Hole by sonawrote	22-Apr-05/4:35 AM
heh
Re: a comment on Gaping Hole by sonawrote	22-Apr-05/4:31 AM
Since my comment is a double entendre, and stays, on the surface, entirely within your own metaphor, in order to parse it as a double entendre you had to first recognize that your own words were a (apparently unintentional but obvious enough that everyone I've shown this "pome" to has immediately snickered) double entendre. That was the point of my comment. In other words, it WAS constructive criticism and your not recognizing it as such is your own failing. It was pointing out that your poem immediately fails as a whole because of a glaringly obvious double entendre. A common pitfall, actually. If you ever managed to get your writing to a level where real writers would consider letting you be part of a real writing workshop, you would very quickly find out that "constructive criticism" has nothing at all to do with the little wet dream you have of a group of people patting you on your back for your cleverness and stroking your metaphorical genitals in loving adoration of your brilliance.
Re: a comment on Gaping Hole by sonawrote	22-Apr-05/4:14 AM
"... so insecure you must proselytize yourself into the belief..." lol. yes, it's sad isn't it? the time I spend proselytizing myself. But very astute of you to notice. This is precisely why I have multiple users on 'ranker: each represents a disjoint set of beliefs, and they waste huge amounts of time trying to convert each other to their view points. It's like Sybil, but without the satanic cults. Probably because at some deep level I just find the whole idea of satanic cults fundamentally silly. As far as stats: I don't care a whit about your stats. If you knew me, or even if you bothered to become vaguely familiar with my posting history before jumping into an exchange and making an idiot of yourself, you would realize my comment was entirely self-deprecatory. Ok, well, predominantly. Mostly. If not mostly, at least somewhat. As to my being sanctimonious...well...as much I love the sound of the word, unfortunately I think I swear & curse a bit too much to qualify for it as an appellative :( You can call me "fucking sanctimonious bastard" if you like though -- that would, if delivered in a properly sarcastic tone, be more accurate.