So Fox News ran a story about how they think libraries are turning into drug-infested sex dens and I am shocked, shocked that I was never offered any drugs during my 15+ years working in libraries.
Where do they think the sex is happening?? Every single aisle is lit in that horrible LED lighting. The teens don’t even make out here anymore.
As a state certified librarian I can assure you that you just have to go into your local library and ask if they’re participating in the new Fox News Hysteria program smh. If they’re not, you’ll just have to renew your library card and use the fun and valuable resources they’re offering right now, such as wifi hotspots, museum passes, dvd lending, mid level adult erotica, ebook lending, and printing! 😔
As a kid, when your parents are poor, you’re poor. If they don’t have money, that means none of you have money. But if someone’s parents are rich, that doesn’t necessarily mean the kid is. Sometimes rich peoples’ kids aren’t rich kids, they’re just some rich freak’s exotic pets that can talk but aren’t allowed to.
That’s… not how class works
ALT
OK, so- my partner was adopted by a rich woman when he was a baby. She’s from a prominent family, practically royalty where we’re from. She certainly had the means to send him to fancy private school, give him good food, nice clothes/toys, premium healthcare… she chose not to. According to her he was lucky to be “adopted out of poverty” at all and should have been content with what she deigned to give him. And she reminded him of this constantly, all through his childhood.
She dangled the promise of uni in exchange for good behavior and good grades- with terms and conditions, of course. And filling her laundry list of demands was something like pulling teeth whilst jumping through hoops. In the end, did he get to go to uni? Of course not. (And certainly being queer/trans on top of it all did not help things whatsoever).
He cut her off after high school, and when I met him a year ago he had been working as (the equivalent of) an UberEats driver for a living for the last few years, including through the pandemic. (Sixteen hours a day for the equivalent of $6 (six) USD, not including the gas for his shitty rundown scooter; caught COVID twice, suffers from chronic fatigue to this day).
And to this day he still has to be selective about which of our ~leftist anarcho-commie~ friends he divulges this part of his background to- cos all they hear is “raised rich” and then suddenly he’s not One of Them because “well teeeeechncially :^) you’re from the oppressing class…”. Like…. shit, man!
Social rules don’t mean shit when it comes to abusive parents. Even rich ones.
Probably especially rich ones.
people are totally on board with the concept of “sufficiently rich people are above the law, and this is bad” but refuse to connect that to the concept of “this also includes laws that protect children from abuse and exploitation”
like we understand “the ruling classes get and maintain their wealth through cruel exploitation of those less powerful” and we can’t wrap our heads around “a lifetime of this cruel and merciless behavior being valorized by your peers probably doesn’t predispose you to suddenly changing gears once you have a helplessly dependent child that’s totally under your control.”
like yeah the rich are our enemies in this ongoing class war, absolutely, it’s an Us or Them situation to save the planet. but if you don’t give a shit about saving the enemy’s children too, i don’t think very highly of your motivation or your methods.
This is also why means testing is bullshit, especially in education, especially in higher education. The child of a rich person attending a public university on public money is less likely to be a spoiled elite taking advantage of resources they don’t need, and more likely to be a young person who has finally gotten out from under the thumb of an abusive and exploitative authority figure and is taking steps to build a life that isn’t dependent on agreeing with their family’s politics.
I am the storm that was approaching. I’m going away now. I’m shy.
Thank you <3 I’ll return when I’m ready and have my feelings under control.
I’m just trying to make a Bury The Light joke here, you don’t have to come for my life like this
Ok, sure, so, this has been, until today, a stream exclusive anecdote but might as well tell it here.
Some years ago, I was super extra burned out while doing my magister’s degree, and when I finally got done with everything for the year, I decided “ok, this year sucked, I’m going to treat myself, gonna go on a small trip with some buds and we’re gonna live the shit out of our summer”, so I closed and powered off everything internet-connected, hit up my chums, and we hung out like two months.
During this time, we did all sorts of things, for example, I wanted to go skydiving, but the prospects didn’t look good, so we went bungee jumping instead, which is super cool when you’re afraid of heights like I am but also immensely terrifying but in a fun way. Another thing we did was go to this convention, it was super chill, and we’re a sociable bunch by default so we hung out with other cool nerds and we did a bunch of stuff together. One of these people in this other group we befriended was this really cute Lucina Fire Emblem cosplayer, right, and we got along really really well, she had a sense of humor very alike mine, was really fun to talk to, the works.
So the mood gets pretty good between us, no doubt from the bounty of Support Points we built up by ending so many turns next to each other, and we sneak out by ourselves without telling the Neo-Group, we walk down a few blocks to the less packed side of town, and in the parking lot behind a Cruz Verde pharmacy, she gives me that Fire Emblem Awakening minmaxed endgame head in costume.
And it’s going really well until I start getting texts from my crew like “DRIMO WHERE ARE YOU ARE YOU OK?” cause my chums are good eggs so they are naturally concerned when their boy just does like Houdini, they are making sure I’m fine, yeah? So I’m like “yeah man no worries” “BUT WHERE ARE YOU? EVERYTHING OK?” “no yeah I’m good I’ll explain later” “WE CAN PICK YOU UP” “my MAN I’m good trust me” so I’m there fighting for my FUCKING life doing QTEs to assuage the party that I am not in any danger while Lucina crits my meat with Aether for 70+ damage and I have to use every single last synapse in my head (the one atop my shoulders) to formulate even basic thoughts and coordinate my hands.
And I’ll spare the damage report but that was a Mission SUCCess, but then, later on, when we were done with our little adventure and I came back, I was like “oh shit, yeah, I never told Tumblr I was gonna do this, huh?”, the last post I had left on Tumblr at that point was “oh boy I’m finally done with academia for the year! I’m gonna go drink myself silly and then I’ll hang out with y’all :)” and then I proceeded to disappear for Two Whole Fucking Months, so I open Tumblr and naturally I have messages in my inbox asking me if I’m fucking alive or not, like, as far as some people were concerned, I had died in a gas leak explosion the moment after I hit Publish on that post. So I’m like “HEY FELLAS WHAT’S UP” and my good friends here at Tumblr Dot Com were like “Drimo! You’re alive! Good to see you! You disappeared for Two Whole Fucking Months! Are you alright?” and I felt so SO SO bad and awkward because I just… Didn’t have the strength, the vim, the vigor, the panache to say “oh yeah I’m fine lol I got turbo cyclone head from a cute Lucina cosplayer ex dee” after hardline disappearing for two whole months in which some people thought I could’ve been a corpse in some back alley, so I just said “oh yeah I just went and did some stuff haha” and refrained from ever telling anyone about how my weasel got shoved into the blue haired washing machine and got touch of death Tekken 7 Geese Howard 100 to 0 combo’d.
And that’s the story of how that particular year sucked but Lucina sucked harder and with less mercy so it fixed the year for me overall.
one time my friend had surgery on her hip/knee and we went to visit her in the hospital and she was like “hey guys, check out what i have! it’s this cool button that, when I press it, it gives me more morphine!” and sure enough she had a little tube with one end attached to her IV or whatever and one end with a button on it, and every time she pushed the button it gave her morphine
and she just kept pressing it and pressing it and giggling and getting loopier and loopier, so we went to ask a nurse if that was OK or if she was just going to overdose herself
and the nurse said that the morphine button is on a self timer limit and she had already maxed it out and won’t be able to get more for a few more hours, but she can just press the button as many times as she wants and thanks to her already being on the max dose of morphine she was just placebo effect-ing herself into the fucking stratosphere
it was a great image, my friend over there high as balls like I HAVE UNLIMITED MORPHINE POWER!!!! *press press press press* and the nurse like “nah that button isn’t doing shit but she’s having fun”
Photographers all know about polarizing filters. They remove reflections off the surfaces of objects. We use them to see into water or windows that are obscured by those reflections. But anything with an even slightly glossy surface has a layer of reflection on top. So if you have a shiny green plant, it can remove the shiny and reveal a very saturated green underneath. Polarizers also remove a lot of scattered and reflected light from the sky. Which reveals a deep blue color you didn’t even know was there.
Here is a photo I took of my circular polarizer.
And the first thing I noticed when walking outside during the eclipse was the color of everything was more saturated, just like in that circle. Apparently, an eclipse significantly reduces polarized light and I got this creepy feeling because I was only ever used to seeing the world like that through the viewfinder of my camera.
The other thing I noticed was my outdoor lights. I leave them on all the time because I never remember to turn them on at night. And usually the sun will render them barely visible during the day. On a very sunny day they almost look like they are off.
But you can clearly see they are shining and even flaring the camera during the eclipse.
Our eyes adjust to lighting changes very well so it was hard to tell how much dimmer things were, but that is a good indication. I took this photo a few minutes ago and you can see how dim the lights appear after the moon has fucked off.
I did a calculation using the exposure settings between these two photos. The non-eclipse photo has 7 f-stops more light. That is 128 times or 12,700% more light.
A partial Pringle eclipse cut the sun’s light by 99.2% and somehow our eyes adjusted to make it seem like a normal sunny day (with weird ass saturated colors).
This is super cool, Sir, and also of great interest to me since I have to wear polarized glasses outdoors most of the time. I am intrigued.
it’s fascinating how you were able to capture that weird light during an eclipse.
Natalie Portman being confused by the fact that you have to say “hi” to someone before starting a conversation in France got me like ?????
“I feel there’s a lot of rules of politeness and codes of behavior there you have to follow. […] A friend of mine taught me that when you go in some place you have to say “bonjour” before you say anything else, then you have to wait two seconds before you say something else. So if you go into a store you can’t be like “do you have this in another size,” or they’ll think you’re super rude and then they’ll be rude to you.” [X]
So that’s it guys. French are not rude, we just don’t like it when people don’t say “Hello” or “Hi” when they start a conversation.
Don’t everyone say “Hi” before they ask something to someone? What’s next? Saying please is also a french thing or others countries does that too?
Canada is similar. We say sorry and please. The Hello thing seems strange, but it actually makes sense.
Bro, this threw me for a loop when I moved up north. Like in the southern United States you say “Hi, how are you?” And then make a few seconds of small talk before you ask your question or order your food and when I went to Connecticut they were like “What do you want?” Without any hello or anything. In other places they just STARE at you waiting on you to place your order and gtfo.
I laid my hand over my chest the first time, and the only way to describe my look was “aghast” before I said “Good lord!” My husband said it’s the most southern thing he’s seen me do. He thought it was hilarious. But…. Like??? That’s rude as fuck??????? Don’t y'all say say “Hello” before throwing your demands at someone??
maybe this is why everyone thinks new yorkers are rude
this is absolutely why ppl think new englanders r rude. no one has any fucking manners
african culture, at least in ghana, demands you greet a person before you ask them something. if youre in an open market they may even ignore you if you dont.
We do this in Australia as well. If you just started straight off saying “yeah I want XXXX” we’d think you’re rude as all fuck. You say hi, then make your request. It’s basic acknowledgement of the other person as a person rather than some random request-filling machine.
Huh. Speaking as a New Englander, I usually go with “Excuse me,” but sometimes “hi” or “hey,” but with no pause – it’ll be, “Excuse me, hi, I was looking for X?” From my POV, it seems rude to get too chatty and waste some stranger’s time; I assume they have better things to do than make small talk with me, so I just get my request out there so they can answer me and get back to whatever needs doing. I always thank folks for their help afterwards, if that helps?
(The rules of etiquette are strange. People say New Englanders are rude and cold, but once during an unexpected snowstorm here in Seattle, my car got stuck and I was standing by the side of the road at a busy intersection in the snow for half an hour waiting for my housemate to come pick me up, and not a single person stopped. Back in Massachusetts, every other car on the road would’ve been pulling up to check to see if I was okay, if my phone was working, did I need a lift, etc.)
No but this was the first thing my cousin told me in France? you never ever ever start a conversation with anyone, not even like “Nice weather today, huh?” without saying Bonjour first. You HAVE to greet them or, just like Ghana, they’ll ignore the shit out of you, you rude little fucker
(And “excuse me” or “pardon me” doesn’t cut it. you still have to open with bonjour)
[and I can’t speak for New England but coming from Chicago and then moving Out West where the culture is VERY influenced by the South and DETERMINED to think of themselves as small town folk… I HATE when I have to make small talk before ordering food??? Like, if it’s a coffee shop that’s pretty much empty I’ll chit chat for a few seconds, but I’m still not going to make inane conversation about the weather unless the weather is extreme.
In a big city it is rude as fuck to waste my time making small talk with me when we are not even friends or neighbors??? I am here to get shit done. There are four other people in line behind me, and I don’t want to waste their time. I am here, I HAVE MY ORDER ALREADY DECIDED BY THE TIME I GET TO THE FRONT BECAUSE I AM NOT A CAVE WOMAN, and I am being polite by saying both Please and Thank You and not wasting other people’s daylight.]
I live in a small northern city, and I feel it would be rude to engage someone in more than maaaaaybe a sentence of small talk before placing my order. In addition to feeling I was wasting their time, I’d feel like I was demanding emotional labour (small-talk is emotional labour for *me*) that they weren’t being paid to give.
so bizarre. New Yorker here. Saying hi, how are you, etc before these kinds of commercial interactions is what’s rude to me - because ffs, there are people in line behind you, we have lives, move it along. It’s really just a dramatic cultural difference - but borne of a real practical necessity.
Oh my god saying ‘hi’ takes less than A SINGLE SECOND YOU ARE NOT WASTING ANYBODY’S TIME
In Spain you have to say hello to people before you talk to them even people who work in retail deserve that bare minimum courtesy hello??
Transplanted New Yorker here, and the feeling here is: people who work in retail deserve the bare minimum courtesy you would afford anyone else, which is to not waste their time. You maybe say a half-second “hi” and/or possibly “excuse me” to be sure you have their attention, then you get to the point as quickly and concisely as possible. You don’t wait to get a “hi” back, you probably don’t ask “how are you”, you definitely don’t talk about the weather. You smile and keep your tone of voice courteous-to-friendly, you say please, you thank them when you’re done, and you do. not. waste. their. time.
Except ”time” is really only shorthand for the concept: you don’t intrude on their lives more than you have to. NY is a very very crowded city which allows for very little personal space, so New Yorkers have developed a form of courtesy that involves minimizing our unavoidable intrusions on each other. Which is why we hold doors without making eye contact, and why we tend to feel that in any interaction with a stranger, it’s actively rude to do anything but get to the point immediately.
Interesting discussion of regional differences in conversational convention. But the amount of “my way is the right way; everyone else is super rude and also wrong” going on in this post is giving me hives.
Hey. Listen. "Polite” and “rude” are relative concepts. Something you were taught was rude may not be seen as rude elsewhere, and might even be the polite thing to do. Conversely, something you might have been taught was polite might be seen as rude elsewhere. Saying “no one has any manners” about a group of people whose culture and, by extension, whose conversational expectations work differently than yours is really arrogant.
In the US the thumbs up means good job or great. In France and Germany it means one, they start counting with the thumb instead of the index finger. In Greece it’s an obscene sexual gesture.
This guy I knew in college worked with the campus d/Deaf/HoH group and told a story about the dinner they had to welcome everyone in. They were trying to tell this little old lady what one of the dishes was, something casserole I forget what kind, and she was getting really flustered. Finally they figured out they were speaking to her in ASL and she was from South Africa. The ASL sign for whatever it was (spinach maybe?) in South African Sign means sex. They were offering this little old lady a sex casserole.
There’s an Italian toast ‘chin chin’, mimicking the sound of the glasses clinking together. It becomes hilarious when Japanese folks are around since in Japanese chin means penis.
As for the South, I will bet you anything that how we have conversations at the register stemmed from the homestead days when a farmer would come in to town maybe once a month and this would be the only time they’d get to talk to someone they didn’t live with. I like talking with customers! If I can get them to smile then it’s a victory and I have a better day for it. It only becomes emotional labor if they’re an outright ass or are sexually harassing me. But in the big crammed city of New York it makes sense to take the get your shit and get out approach, people have a subway to catch. Out here I had to drive myself anyway since it’s fifteen minutes to the edge of town from where I live, so what does it matter if I spend an extra minute at the register?
It’s important to be aware of the differences and ultimately there’s a degree of ‘when in Rome’ that has to happen. Someone who moves from Greece to the US is going to be startled by the amount of thumbs up but ultimately they’re going to have to adjust. Someone from the US is probably going to be shocked that telling someone they did a good job was taken as an insult and they similarly are going to have to adjust. Mom’s a damn Yankee transplant and said it was weird moving to the South and having cashiers younger than her daughter call her dear, but that’s just what we do. Sweetheart, darling, honey, sugar, they don’t have overtly romantic/sexual connotations here. As long as there’s not a leer attached to it if a guy calls me ‘sugar’ when I’m at work it doesn’t parse as a flirt because it’s not one, it parses the same as if he called me ‘miss’. But when a busload of Californians came through it took me three people to realize that ‘baby’ was not flirting, it was just California.
NOTHING is universal.
This is the biggest place I’ve ever worked so it took some getting used to, like any skill, but even being socially awkward it’s easy to tell what scripts to follow. Test the waters, if they don’t respond then okay this is a move them through kind of person, be quick and efficient and to the point, feel good when they smile at ‘last question I promise, do you want your receipt’. If they do then pull out the five small talk scripts, get a smile, feel good when they laugh at the cat small talk script.
It’s also important to note that claiming your culture’s way of doing polite right is a fantastic way to fall into some really bigoted nonsense. In Puerto Rico the personal bubble is much smaller than in the US proper, like RIGHT at your elbow close. I had a cashier who was super uncomfortable because our steward was getting in her personal space constantly and he was pissed off because he was trying to HELP her with moving orders why is she mad at him? Once I sat them down and explained the difference they both had this aw shit moment because from their own standpoints they were being polite and from the others’ standpoints they were being rude. After that they were fine, when he got a little too close she’d say ‘whoa man my bubble’ and he’d laugh and shake is head and step back.
Lots of non-white cultures have things like that, particularly since white America has serious problems with sexualizing ANY physical contact to the point we’re all touch starved. The normal speaking voice is at a higher volume or it’s more acceptable to show your emotions or gesture when you speak. None of this is WRONG, but when people star getting into ‘my culture is the only right culture’ then guess who comes out on top? It ain’t the little guy.
One of my labmates was from Poland, and she had a tendency to come off as kind of abrupt and brusk, verging on mean. In particular, when she was providing feedback on a presentation or paper she could come across as SUPER cutting. Which was not her intention! From the way she would explain it, we had a running joke in the lab, “it sounds nicer in Polish.”
And this is actually true; there are scientific articles comparing the cultural contexts for communication! It’s really neat.
So in (most parts of) America, we equate indirectness with politeness. “Excuse me, would it be possible for you to perhaps pass me that salt, if you don’t mind?” The more roundabout you are, the more we consider that a signal of social courtesy.
In Poland, not only is indirectness viewed as rudely wasting the listener’s time, but directness is viewed as communicating intimacy and friendliness. “Give me the salt.”
…It sounds nicer in Polish. :)
Omg I love this
The Effects of Capital, Labor, and Class on Local Etiquette Across International Boundaries
Idiots: Both parties are the same, it doesn’t matter who you vote for
Me, a person who doesn’t huff paint: The Democrats just passed a law that will protect children from persecution and bigotry and introduce new safeguards to protect people from sexual assault and safeguard victims of such crimes
The Republicans meanwhile are a party made up of wife beaters, child abusers, pedophiles and rapists whose nominee for president is a domestic abuser who raped a thirteen year old child
But yeah sure, there’s totally no difference at all in who you vote for
ALT
