Miscellaneous nonsense.

[zotz]

A few points relating to the last few days:

• http://www.bendshire.com/ - bloody hobbithouses. Quite near seventorches, which I mention in case she's feeling comfortable living so close to it.
  
  
• I think I've found a community devoted to Harry Potter/Leonard Cohen slash. You hear that sound? That's my skin crawling.
  
  
• http://www.electoral-vote.com:2006/ deserves a mention, and extra points for good use of a port number too. It is, as before, Andrew "No, actually I didn't invent Linux" Tanenbaum's opinion-poll summary in the runup to US elections - in this case the midterms. As before, it looks as though politicians will win most of the seats.
  
  
• There's an interesting article on the US death sentence at http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1877856,00.html. Among the interesting points is:
  Many states are beginning to wonder whether the death penalty isn't just costing too much already. A typical capital case costs at least three and a half times as much as lifetime incarceration. New Jersey has passed 60 death sentences, overturned 50 on appeal, and still not executed any of the 10 men left on death row. Having spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars executing nobody, it's expected to abolish its death penalty this year.
  
  
• Adam Ant was in the paper a week or so ago nominating a Significant Image that mattered to him. He impressed me significantly by choosing Guernica. Sadly I can't find the actual article. It was quite interesting.
  
  
• Several friends of mine have a particular friend I've never met, although I remember her name being mentioned at various points over the last several years. I know nothing about her except, oddly, that I've just heard about her eating plasticine. This makes me wonder - what have people I've never met heard about me? What sort of opinion must they have? I suppose if any of you wish to confess having told people odd things about me, this would be a good time. I promise to try to be amused by it. Or if the subject comes up do you all claim not to know me?
  
  
• Today's Guardian has an article on independent record shops. Kev Avalanche gets a look in, of course, and it even turns out that he has a surname of his own after all. Who knew?
  
  
• Alternative Carpark went rather well on Saturday, and we managed to arrange the rather unusual sight of a dancefloorload of g*ths dancing to such obvious handstapleforehead fodder as Start Wearing Purple and Babylon's Burning. Yesterday included a rather fun (but very short) gig by the Victorian English Gentlemen's Club, who in fact sound a bit like those pesky Pixies, but on average look better in nice frocks.
  

Comments

[zotz]

Non-offensive if we know more about you than most people reading this do. And his interest in your comments was because it was you he was having a conversation with.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

Even without knowing that I'm a Paki I really don't see how that comment could be taken as offensive. It was a comparison. So it's ok to poke fun at g*ths but not ok to say the word Paki even in a non-offensive way. That's how it looks to me.

[zotz]

Non-offensive according to you. Other people think differently. If I'm right that that was the problem, of course.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think political correctness has gone too far. I'm coloured and a half-caste. I don't find those offensive. I use them all the time, just to describe myself, much to the discomfort of certain upper class idiots. As for Paki and Nigger and words like that, when not used as a slur they are not really offensive. They are just words. It's how you use them that can make them offensive.
Maybe my English teacher was a moron. He had a stroke a while back so you'll never really know.

[zotz]

I wasn't upset by it because I know the context. People who don't know you have little way of guessing whether you're using it reasonably or being inflammatory - and most people who use it aren't being friendly.