some more misc. comments I've posted

[redbird]

In bisexual, responding to junkfood_junkie's assertion that we should have waited on same-sex marriage:

We've been working within the system for years. How long would you wait? "All deliberate speed" is a recipe for inaction, and the first same-sex couple married in San Francisco had already waited fifty years.

Gavin Newsom's position is that what he's doing is not illegal, because the law banning it is unconstitutional. He is thus in the same position as someone who committed sodomy in Texas before the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. Similarly, New York law on the matter is ambiguous.

More to the point, the anti-marriage forces suggested the federal ban in response to the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling. Going to court and getting a favorable ruling on state constitutional grounds is definitely working within the justice system.

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In response to misia's statement that she hasn't watched television since 1986:

To a first approximation, I haven't watched television since the 1980s or early 1990s. I'm not sure exactly, because it wasn't exactly a decision to stop; rather, it was a decision to stop paying for a service that we'd already stopped using. cattitude might remember what year it was.

If you're feeling nitpicky, I should note that I tend to see bits of television at the gym (hard to avoid, given the way the place is set up) and in certain stores (ditto). I even watched the news for a little while in the store downstairs on purpose, two and a half years ago.

Oh, and I watched an episode of Buffy while visiting eleanor some months back. And other programs from time to time, while visiting other people: Teletubbies a few years ago, courtesy of bohemiancoast's daughter.

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In response to something treadpath wrote, about people she dislikes for no specific reason:

"I do not like thee, Dr. Fell."

There are lots of reasons for liking people, and lots of reasons for disliking them, and sometimes it seems pretty arbitrary which I notice. But yes, it's easier when I can identify a reason: I don't like this person because he doesn't recognize my personal space, because she insists on dominating every conversation by telling bad jokes, or such. (There's a separate category of "this person is unethical/destructive/too selfish/et cetera"; that's learned caution or avoidance, often of someone I did like at least for a while.

There are people whose virtues I can recognize, and say "Yes, s/he is a good person" and still not want to spend time with. And that's okay: there are 8 million other people just in this city, I'm not abandoning them to a life of complete isolation.

Life in the modern Western world throws enough television at me that I know that (a) there is some good stuff there, (b) there's an awful lot of crap there, (c) neither of these facts is new, and (d) I still don't want a television.

Comments

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

If we'd all just wait until we're dead, it wouldn't disrupt anything, affect the laws, or disturb the neocons. Why can't people just see this? Doing nothing is always the best option. That's why everybody still lives in trees in Africa. Uhm...

Some people just smell funny

[freeimprov.livejournal.com]

There's an idea from computer programming called "code smells"... basically, when there's a problem with code, you can smell it, even if you can't put your finger on what it is. In my experience, a code smell is almost always valid; i'll know there is something wrong long before i know exactly what it is. Intuition counts for a lot.

I'm very social and generally like most people, so if someone rubs me the wrong way right away, it's a smell. My intuition is way smarter than my conscious brain. But to put a positive spin on this, i sometimes get an instinctively right feel from some people the moment i meet them. For the most part, i immediately recognized my closest friends as close friends. It's kind of like love at first sight, for friendship.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I almost never encounter someone I would say I "dislike." I think that I am about people the same way I am about food. My attitude to food is something that J and I call "the Martin Schafer approach," because many years ago we more than once heard mgs say about some food or other, "It's not that bad, actually." I don't know whether this means that mgs shares it with me or not, but I have a high tolerance for mediocrity in most areas.

Provided, that is, that mediocrity doesn't pretend to excellence. People who think they're smarter than they are, or cleverer that they are, or more charming than they are, whatever, wear out my tolerance pretty fast. But I still wouldn't automatically say that I dislike them.

But choose to spend time with? Of course I have my preferences. I have noticed, however, that often I'm interested in spending time with someone whom others pay little attention to (or in a couple of instances, avoid), and uninterested in seeking the company of someone whom others flock after. Maybe it's just my contrary nature.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I've been pondering television and my abandonment thereof since reading misia's remark.

I have a television, but what I don't have is cable. I dropped it sometime in the early 90s, when I got my first dial-up Internet account; at the time the two services cost roughly the same, and I knew I was going to be spending more time in front of this small box, so I figured there was no point in paying for the added service for that small box. I still had a TV, but (due to the weakness of local broadcast signals) it could only reliably pick up PBS. Which I've continued to watch, but not with any great regularity.

I do still watch TV sometimes at a friend's house, or when I'm traveling. I got completely hooked on Babylon 5, and used to have a weekly viewing date with a former um-friend. My current sweetie is introducing me to Buffy, a few episodes at a time, on DVD. I know there's some good programming out there, and it's not so much that I'm anti-TV, I just can't be bothered.

What I don't miss one bit - and what appalls me when I catch a glimpse of it on someone else's set - are commercials and TV "news." It shocks me to think how many people get all their information about the world in 60-second snippets from the blow-dry people.

It's also been ... interesting to discover how much I've gradually lost touch with the prevalent popular culture of my time by simply not watching TV.

[ailbhe]

I love watching TV commercials. Including watching DVDs, our TV is on maybe 4 hours a month, and we usually spend a little while watching the music channels and something showing adverts, because I love to play "Guess the product before they tell you what it is."

Possibly if I saw more of them, and they were interrupting something I was actually *watching*, I'd hate them too.

[stealthpup.livejournal.com]

I've rarely had that experience (re instant dislike without corroborative evidence), but, when I have had it, it's always been visceral and *strong*, like I have to get away NOW. I have this reaction to one of my current acquaintances, who happens to be friends with a number of my friends; this is quite uncomfortable. At best, I attribute it to his having what I call "psycho eyes", but I know it's more than that.

I really don't know how to reconcile that feeling; I do, at least, try to be polite and sociable, but the itch to flee is always there.