Curious about this 'clone wars' concept. What would they be fighting about? What would make the wars stand out as clone wars, rather than trade wars or freedom wars? If there was no apparent connection or overall reason...just a mass uprising of wars, it could make sense....but how does it make sense to the viewer?
There is a serious problem in that many people downplay the danger of radical Islam which controls many nations and has been adopted by a great number of people. It shouldn't be scary to say that radical Islam is a major and serious problem in the world that should be tackled. Not to make more of Warbler's statement than he intended, but it doesn't matter if most members of a group don't want to take over the world or install Islamic law everywhere. We see how Islamists took over Egypt, for example.
An instructive article, from the National Review. The magazine (despite being severely conservative) doesn't fall into a trap of blaming the Swedish riots on Islam. It blames the Swedes for creating a kind of permanent benign cultural segregation by virtue of their generosity and aloofness (I want to go there so bad now).
Little of both. There is not a hidden agenda. There are vocal segments of Islam about their desire to maintain Islamism and spread it to other countries.
For others it's not so much an agenda to install Islam as a natural inclination to push for laws and accommodations in line with their religious beliefs.
I mean look at the constant criticism of Christians, claiming they seek to install a theocracy. Do they realllly? No, the vast majority do not.
There is that double standard in criticism of Christians vs Muslims.
Some are overheated in their criticism, believing there is only a hardline agenda and that we are in existential war and must throw the Muslims out to protect ourselves.
As for clones, I've floated the idea that there not be clones. That the war start between a few planets, fueled by rumors of a cloned army. Maybe there is cloning technology being used on a small scale or merely threatened to be used and it's deemed unethical/dangerous...but many planets see it as a way to become militarily powerful. Cloning becomes the battle cry in what was already an tense situation, thus the Clone Wars.
DuracellEnergizer said:
I haven't read any of the books, but I can see why you don't like the new stuff; series that outlive their original creator(s) and become serialized tend to become crappy/extremely unfaithful to the source material.
This. Well-reasoned critique, Warb, though I haven't read that series.
I've been on an Oz kick, reading all of Baum's Oz books. I'm wary of subsequent authors' Oz books based on what I've read. Though I also take issue with Baum himself not being consistent. The George Lucas of his day ;P
I loved the Boxcar Children series. But after other authors took over I didn't feel like they were "real" Boxcar Children books. They just felt 'meh' to me.
I've never encountered anything so glaring as what you describe. That even the publisher didn't notice or care!
I have a lingering question for which the internet isn't much help. There have been times in Doctor Who that a character will refer to Cardiff in what strikes me as a disparaging tone. What is the joke?
It's a creative notion but I'd be wary of the story feeling like a political metaphor rather than a fun space adventure.
Hm, okay, I'll be serious. I don't consider myself a feminist, not as the term is typically used (but I do agree with Boost on the diapering option). I'm in favor of equality of opportunity. That to me doesn't mean seeking equal results, gender neutrality, or encouraging gender non-conformity. I think, by-and-large, boys will be boys, and girls will be girls. My niece has always hated wearing things on her feet - socks, shoes, slippers, any of it. Then one day her father buys her slippers she absolutely adores. They're Darth Vader slippers. She is too young to know who that is, she just loves them. I don't see it as a feminist victory, it's just awesome.
Not getting enough sleep, Frink?
My grandmother never shaved her legs.
TV's Frink said:
Warbler said:
Leonardo said:
Warbler said:
twister111 said:
Hey, it's me. said:
I can't see skirts ever becoming unisex attire. Hairy legs do not suit skirts and men haven't got hour glass figures.
So what about a girl who's figure isn't skinny? Or another girl who is but refuses to shave her legs? Would you also be against them wearing skirts?
I would hope a women that refuses to shave her legs would were a dress long enough to cover the legs.
Hair on a women's legs just doesn't look right.
But God put it there.
All things furry and hairy, the Lord God made them all ...
God also put hair on my face, yet I see no reason not to shave it off.
I cannot wrap my brain around this statement.
Not sure if serious.
Nah, I'm with you. I don't get it.
As for hair on girls legs, I knew a girl who didn't shave. It was intriguing. If a girl had more hair on her legs than me, that would be undesirable. An informal poll of females I know shows dislike of men's underarm hair, that it's weird.
Asian women are very pretty. Also, I've never tried olives but they taste awful. No connection between the two.
Warbler, Gaffer explains his reason:
And I want to, for an instant, shake other people out of their comfort zones and cause them to have to think for a second. Sure, many will just laugh at the freak and never stop to consider it, but I hope others will manage to have a moment like mine where they suddenly find themselves thinking in new ways. I'm not trying to "convert" a bunch of gender nonconformist disciples, but I just want people to see something out of the ordinary and consider for just a moment that things can or even should be out of the ordinary.
Whether it has that intended effect upon you (or me) doesn't matter. If it impedes or helps Gaffer in any way, that's his life.
If you started wearing dresses, Warbler, it may not be an improvement in your life. I joked with a friend recently about borrowing her pink parasol. I wasn't quite that brave but it wouldn't be a transformational experience anyways, just a lark, and then I'd be stuck carrying around a parasol. I did relay to her, that "being an ostensibly full-grown man" I'd like to do certain things a man isn't supposed to do - like randomly climb a tree. For the effect of it. So I sort of get Gaffer's intention, though I have no interest in wearing women's clothing. Part of the objection to acting outside of norms is that it is in a way 'immature.' Sort of:
1 Corinthians 13:11 said:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
We're suppose to be settled and serious, conservative in order to succeed because that's how the world works.
I don't have much of a response to that at the moment, except to conclude with a couple of quotes:
Elwood P. Dowd said:
Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.
Elwood P. Dowd said:
Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.
Bingowings said:
I think you overestimate the vulnerability of people sitting in a locked toilet cubicle.
Plenty of people are uncomfortable with public bathrooms, even if someone isn't pounding the door down or sticking their head underneath. They're simply not the "height of privacy."
I would hate to lose variety and complexity.
Having limited options means I'm more prone to be a victim of fate rather than a creature of action capable of making choices.
The idea that there would only be one flavour of desire with only one outcome (procreation) turns the human race into little less than a plague.
Only diversity adds poetry and surprises.
A world without sex would be interesting. Probably a much better world. Not a world I would want. I enjoy diversity, as it exists.
My homosexuality isn't the whole of me but it is a large part of me which I have had to adjust to as have the people around me.
Me without it would not be me regardless of what I do with it in terms of sticking my genitals into things.
And in a world where there was need need for adjusting, you would have been different yet. While playing a big role, I do think you would have many essential qualities that would shine through whether you born a woman, straight, or any other way. Though I do believe in souls. And speaking of which, did you see that terrible story of a man in Sweden with a hornet nest? Fortunately, turned out to be a hoax.
Children hate clowns. Clowns are ambiguity personified. The gender and age cues are mixed up they have false faces, the body signature is confused, they have squeaky feet.
Over time you come to realise that clowns aren't scary, they are EVIL!!!!
As a child, I wanted to be a clown. I have matured, however, and now also agree that they are in fact evil.
Warbler said:
Mrebo said:
this makes me very sad, for I know we are getting close to the point where we may have to make the same choice for our dog.
That is sad. I was back home recently. The backyard is something of a pet cemetery I realized, with dogs and the occasional cat buried here and there. I miss the dogs.
Bingowings said:
Properly maintained toilet cubicles are the height of privacy.
I thoroughly disagree. I think you overestimate the extent to which many people are comfortable in public spaces when partially disrobed or using a toilet.
Wishing that gay people didn't exist sounds very dodgy.
When viewed through a lens of homosexuality being an indispensable part of identity, sure. timdiggerm sort of touched on that. Seen through a lens of we're all just people (with various desires and predilections) and that it would be simpler if people only had a desire for the opposite sex is another matter. That's why I liked what Gaffer had to say, as he responded from that less paradigmatic framework.
As you say, Warbler didn't mean what it can sound like to many.
Most people grow out of fearing diversity and complexity, it's the sort of thing children feel.
As for men looking silly in dresses and women looking smart in trousers.
What makes clothes look silly is subjective regardless of gender.
I don't believe that children fear diversity and complexity nor that most adults embrace it.
Expectations play a role in what looks weird. I have this hoody I enjoy that I've been told should be burned. It defies certain expectations of good taste. But I find it quirky and warm. A dress on a man defies a bigger expectation - though I think that is part of the fun for many men who do so. In general "I'm an old fashioned cat."
Bingowings said:
I don't think Warb is being deliberately fascistic.
He may be expressing views which accidentally chime with that sort of ideology and need to have a good hard think about what he is saying there.
Replace the word "homosexuals" with "Jews", "gay" with "Jewish", "straight" with "Christian","genders" with "religions", "transgenders" with" Mormons" and the sentence is just as worryingly wacky.
I do think Warbler is being misunderstood. His underlying ['old fashioned'] premise is one of privacy between people of opposite sexual attraction. Historically presumed to occur between people of the opposite sex, it was functionally simple - men in one room, women in another.
It wasn't merely an extension of women hiding their ankles.
Some of you are essentially arguing that Warbler should feel comfortable peeing in front of women. His reluctance to do so isn't rooted in homophobia. Wanting to hold on to a culture of privacy isn't wrong-headed.
Warbler's hypothetical is more analogous to there being no left-handed people, than blacks and jews. It would be simpler if there were no left-handed people. Not because such people are necessarily undesirable, but functionally it would just be easier.
The rebuttal that in Warbler's hypotethical 'easier simply means not disturbing his comfort' misses the bigger value of privacy he (and most people) still value.
Bingo, you bring up the beach. Many people are not comfortable at the beach. I never undressed in front of other kids or adults at any point I was old enough to be aware. Still, partial nudity at the beach - like peeing on wall standing next to strangers - is a convention. And still one that many people are not comfortable with.
We can change cultural conventions, pee next to women (lesbian or not), adopt an entirely nude culture, whatever, but Warbler isn't of that mindset.
So I see nothing incompatible with his bleeding heart mindset and his respect for old-fashioned norms of privacy. There are two arguments there.
CP3S said:
Here, try this on:
C3PX said:
If I could work my will, there would be no religion, no one would believe in a god or gods, and they would be better for it. No one would want to be Christians and no one would want to be religious. Things would be so much simpler that way. No offense to Christians or religious folk intended.
I feel like had I said this during any of our religious discussions, you would have been rather hurt and offended.
To be completely honest, though I try not to bring it up, I totally feel like the world would be far better off, though perhaps a bit less interesting, if religion were to altogether die off and become a a thing of the past that everyone cringes or laughs about. Kind of like how we cringe or sometimes chuckle when we think about the fact that doctors used to slice open arteries to let their patients bleed their fevers out.
Why am I saying all of this here and now when it doesn't relate to the topic at hand whatsoever? Because I could never imagine Mrebo applauding my forthrightness for saying such a thing.
If our opinions are backwards, bigoted, hateful, and mean-spirited, perhaps applause is better deserved when you keep it to yourself. If someone here came out and admitted that if they could work their will there would be no black people, because, you know, it would be less complicated that way, I really hope nobody here would applaud their forthrightness for it.
By the way, religious people are okay by me, I've known a lot of awesome and very intelligent religious people.
If it were an atypical expression of your beliefs on the subject, I very well might applaud you for stepping outside that normal zone of your usual socially-approved beliefs. Warbler doesn't do that often. And spitting out anti-religious views isn't that risky or out of character. So I see no need to applaud that.
I see no need to bully someone into silence. I know Warbler strenuously believes there should be no legal discrimination of any sort, he doesn't personally see any reason gay relationships should be seen differently than straight ones (though his church teaches otherwise), but he makes a comment on how - purely hypothetically - society could be simpler if there was a single form of sexuality and he's a terrible bigot.
I actually thought Gaffer gave a very good response. It was actually responsive!
I'm still embarrassed about that restaurant bathroom.
Warbler said:
Gaffer Tape said: To constantly wedge people into a one-size-fits-all mentality, I feel, is to the ultimate detriment of humanity because it immediately and irrevocably limits us for the sake of maintaining an arbitrary classification that someone else created. For the sake of simplicity.
but it is what he have to do in the case of public restrooms, unless you think each place should have billions of restrooms, 1 for each individual person.
Warbler is brilliantly hilarious at times. I'm not at all being sarcastic, Warbler. The matter-of-fact statement of absurdity is truly great.
timdiggerm said:
TV's Frink said:
And, I should point out, gay people were around in those simpler times as well.
Technically debatable, as what you and I call "gay" as an identity is a very modern, western concept,
but the point stands that people's sexualities have been all over the place forever.
An important observation. Gay as an identity/community is its own special creation.
CP3S said:
Gaffer Tape said:
I absolutely hate those communal trough-style urinals like you find in sports stadiums.
Sports stadiums use those? Ha! Weird! It seems I have probably never been in a sports stadium.
The only place I have seen those trough-style urinals are in gay bars.
I was at a fancy restaurant in New York. In the bathroom was a wall with water running down it. I didn't see a urinal. I think I saw a man was peeing into the fountain/wall so I followed suit. But the towel guy (perpendicular to me) was staring at me the whole time. Made me wonder if it was in fact a fountain I shouldn't be peeing in. I still wonder.
I gotta applaud Warbler for his forthrightness.
TV's Frink said:
What if she was Ellen?
Just don't ask if it were Chaz Bono.
Darth Lucas said:
Mrebo said:
I very much agree, NeverarGreat. Still, just coming up with a great script - so great, people read it and WANT it to be the prequels - would be a triumph.
If someone offered a great overall concept and an outline, or a whole draft of a script that would provide some basis for people to offer changes and additions, perhaps quite major ones. But we'd need to be open to people poking at our 'art.'
I'm of the school that we keep all OT secrets. I want to work from a premise of what the PT would have looked like story-wise if made pre-77. I think there may be room for an Anakin/Obi-Wan centric story, but it is a challenge. Still, plenty of you need greater creative justification of that route. And without showing how it can work, it's hard to sign on to that sort of vision. Just as I'm intrigued about Neverar's unknown character vision, but need convincing.
I've liked CWBorne's work too. And the cross-polination is a good point. There are certain story elements of his I independently chose (Obi Wan crashing to Tatooine at the start) and other's I'm tempted to 'adopt.'
See. Here's where I disagree. While I do feel that the reveals of the OT should be preserved, there really isn't a way to make a decent, cohesive story arc that way. I'm in the school of thought that you should assume everybody watching already knows the reveals. I think that when thinking about story for the prequels, it should have reveals of it's own, so that whether you watch it 456123, or 123456, you still get some powerful reveals. I want to work from a premise of what the PT would have looked like if made late-eighties, early-nineties; as opposed to late-nineties, early two-thousands. Personally, I've always felt the story should be more about Obi-Wan's failure as a mentor, not Anakin's failure as a jedi. 1-3 should be about Obi-Wan, 4-6 should be about Luke, and the underlying story that ties them together should be about Anakin/Vader's redemption.
Neverar identifies one possibility, by making the events of the OT more peripheral to what happens in the PT. Or you can make Anakin a heroic figure fighting for justice and Obi Wan seemingly stuck in the past, reluctant, accepting of so many bad things that Anakin (and the viewer) thinks can be addressed. We never dislike Obi Wan, but recognize he is a flawed character. This leads to a duel in which Anakin suffers a not wholly intended "death" at the hand of his friend (falls into a volcano). The ultimate triumph of the Empire is a happy ending as it seeks to address all the problems in the universe. The point is that we never see Anakin really categorically go "bad." And there are so many ways it would be a transformational experience of the story in any viewing order.
TV's Frink said:
Warbler said:
Leonardo said:
Warbler said:
Gaffer Tape said:
Aw, come on, Warbler. I come back after all this time and already there's a *sigh*. I really do want to know... when you're using the bathroom, a state most people regardless of orientation would consider less than attractive, what does someone's sexuality matter? Why does it make you feel more comfortable to pretend all men are straight when you're in there? If you happen to catch an accidental wandering eye when you're peeing, does it ultimately make any practical difference what that person is attracted to, even if you somehow managed to find out with no uncertainty? Is there going to be any other outcome besides you finishing your business, washing your hands (hopefully), and going about your life?
call me a prude, but I don't want anyone looking my stuff when I am doing my business. Straight men would have no desire to look at my stuff where as a gay man might, so I guess it just makes me more comfortable to assume all the men in the restroom are straight. Again call me a prude and call me old fashioned, but I think men's and women's bathrooms should be kept separate. It has worked fine for years and I just don't want to my business at a urinal when ladies are present.
but why would anyone want to look at other people's junk while they're doing their business? unless you're that small percent of the population that's into that sorta thing, you're not gonna do that.
Straight men would have no desire to look at my stuff where as a gay man might...
Assuming and self-absorbed much?
How am I assuming too much by assuming a gay man would want to look a man's stuff where as a straight would not?
and I don't think it is vain to not want people looking at your stuff.
Ok, so I assume you'd be fine pissing next to a lesbian, then?
Now you're just not paying attention. He would assume her to be straight.
Warbler said:
Gaffer Tape said:
"Oh good God"? Would you please care to elaborate?
I thought it was quite self explanatory.
Yet again call me a prude and old fashion, but I just don't get the idea of a man dressing like a woman. Sorry.
You gotta be careful, sometimes the clothes make the man.
