Categories
Just Shelley

Filters

had a nice long walk at Tower Grove park today. The conditions were about perfect: sunshine, cold, and soft white snow. I must be a simple woman, with simple tastes, because there are few things I enjoy more than a winter walk. Few people were about, so I could stop as I wished and explore and make comments to myself, and to the squirrels and birds, without attracting strange looks.

The day was ideal for thinking, and as I was walking, I found myself thinking about frog vision. And filters.

A frog’s visual system is genetically specialized for prey detection and will not respond to any other stimuli. A frog could starve to death surrounded by dead flies because it literally doesn’t see them — they’re not moving. The frog’s vision is filtered to only see objects of a certain size moving at a specific speed. Only these circumstances will cause the cells within the frog’s eyes to fire and generate a reaction — tongue whipping out at the prey.

Unfortunately, any dot of the right size moving at the right speed will trigger this reaction, including a plane flying by overhead.

The human visual system is much more sophisticated, but people are just as capable of filtering; the only difference is that human filtering is deliberate rather than being based on genetics. So you all can go outside and look at planes without feeling the impulse to whip your tongue out. Well, most of you.

As I walked through the snow today, and looked into the diamond-bright powdered depths, I was thinking to myself that there were people out in the world at this very moment with an internalized set of criteria that effectively filters me out. In some cases, the filter rejects me as a love interest; in others a friend; in still others, an employee.

Still, the sun continues to shine and the snow remains cold and beautiful, and I love winter walks just as much. I hope I will love and be loved in return, and that I and my lover will count ourselves lucky. I hope I will like and be liked in return, and I and my friends will count ourselves lucky.

And I hope I’ll win the lottery, and then will no longer care what people think of me in the workplace.

Invitation

Categories
Writing

Debate—Retro

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I woke up this morning and looked out the window to streets white with snow. Now I feel in the mood for the holidays. Not enough to shop or decorate or anything, but a winter holiday mood nonetheless.

I went looking for my version of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to post again this year, and came upon this chestnut I thought I would share with you.

I wonder what ever happened to debate? Or disagreement? Or even getting pissed at another person and coming out swinging — in writing that is.

Weblogging is a natural forum for debate: Person A says something that person B doesn’t like, Person B responds, Person A counter-responds, and the weblog readers add comments or sit on the sidelines, rooting for the champion of preference.

This type of communication isn’t bad. It isn’t evil. It isn’t even counterproductive, particularly if both participants care deeply about what they’re saying and it shows in the thrust and counter-thrust of exchange.

Yeah, I like to debate, and I like to argue, and occasionally, I even like to agree. Regardless, I find it stimulating to get into a written exchange with someone who will give as good as they get, who won’t back down, who will argue passionately about their beliefs or views or opinions. And even tell me to go to hell, as long as the “go to hell” is well written. If they’re a better writer or debater than I am, so much the better.

I search the weblogs seeking Rousseau and Descartes and instead I find Casper Milquetoast.

Categories
Just Shelley Weather

Winter—Retro

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Another posting from last year, wrote while looking out on palm trees and bare streets, walkers in shorts. This year, I repost these words while looking out at white flakes falling past my window, covering the ground. What is it about falling snow that makes one reflective, somehow wistful and nostalgic?

Snow falling gently over rolling hills dotted with trees both green and bare. The cerulean blue sky is captured, muted, and then reflected back in distorted waves from ice formed across a vast lake. Watched through the window, a red fox leaps from snow back to snow bank in the field in front of the house, its color matching the red of the barn next door.

Strand after strand of large Christmas lights are wound round and round the pine tree that stands alone in the field. At night, a switch is thrown and for miles you can see the tree, lights blazing, casting a multi-colored shadow on the snow.

In the morning a rare cardinal in the bush next to the driveway makes a nice counter point to the blue of the jays and the brown of the occasional hawk and commonly occurring finch.

Crystal white, azure blue, pine green, fox red, hawk brown. And then it gets colorful.

Winter in Vermont.

Categories
Connecting Diversity

Two things

Two things today:

Jonathon posts an apology to Dorothea and Tish that I thought was well done. And both Tish and Dorothea deserved it.

Sheila has much good to say about feminism and girlism. As does Suzanne in my comments to the posting “Looking Glass Self”. She writes:

Okay, so I took some time to follow the thread a little and I have some questions. Not abstract, big academic questions, but practical, nuts and bolts, if you will, questions. And let’s assume for a moment that the “girlism” theory is posed by someone who has little real education about the concept, scope, or history of feminism, and she’s struggling with what she sees as the possibly limited avenues of power for a woman in her world, which apparently consists of some type of office job, possibly professional, possibly not, and a culturally normal amount of pop tv and and other media influence. Given these assumptions, and I realize they are only assumptions, it’s not surprising she adopted this kind of theory, nor is it surprising that her particular culture is highly invested in her embracing this type of theory. But I digress to abstractions, forgive me. Now to the practicalities.

If a woman is to use girlism techniques as a way to negotiate her work or career situation, I wonder how she would succeed if she didn’t have the requisite physical characteristics, such as relative youth, between 18 and say, 25 in some arenas, maybe up to 40 in others. She’d need to be conventionally pretty, this would include thin, and possibly blond. (depending on which geo-region she’s operating in) If the woman in question has most or all of these characteristics, she may be able to leverage certain benefits, such as getting the freshest cup of coffee from the lunch room pot, preferred vacation days, the bigger corner cubicle, help with aspects of work she may find daunting, or distasteful, maybe even high level kinds of benefits like the good clients, or a chance to attend an important business luncheon. Would she actually be able to pull off a raise or promotion with girlism tactics? Maybe. What happens when a younger, thinner, blonder “girlist” appears on the scene, and we know the laws of nature dictate that there’s always someone younger and thinner and prettier eventually. Does the original girlist get to keep her skillfully won advantages, perks, benefits and even promotions? Does she have to employ ever more advanced levels of “girlist” techniques to compete such as flashing or lap dancing?

What about the women who are in their 50’s or 60’s, or fat women, or physically disabled women, or women with mastectomies, pregnant women. How are they to negotiate power in this situation? Now this is assuming girlist theory takes into consideration all women. If it does, what about women who are muslim, let’s say, and culturally and religiously restrained from interacting in sexually flirtatious ways with men who are not their husband? (yes, virginia, feminist theory encompasses these women in dignified ways) If girlists care about other women, how do they account for the extreme disadvantage suffered by these non pretty, non-young, non-thin, non American-pop-culture defined, non-blond women? What about lesbians in the work place? Or workplace shuch as hospitals? How does a resident surgeon use girlist techniques with success? For real, how does she?

What about other settings, let’s say school. Do girlists train 12 year-old girls to expose their cleavage to their teachers in order to be considered or recognized for academic achievements? And how do we help them deal with the problem of competition with other girls in the classroom for the teachers attention? When do we introduce the more advanced girlist techniques to our young women? 12? 13? 15? Of course, just as with adults, there’s the pesky problem of physical diversity that turns a girlist playing field into a steep hot metal slide. I’m assuming again there’s room in girlist theory for consideration of all girls.
Seriously, how far does the power reach? How far does a girlist have to go to leverage it? And how does girlist theory account for women who are prohibited in some way from using it? And who else benefits from the operation or this theory besides the girlist herself? Yeah, you better believe there’s serious benefit to other interests besides the girlist herself, and I’m not just talking about the lap sitee.

Just a few questions I thought I’d throw out.

 

If you don’t have a weblog, Suzanne, you need to get one. Please.

Categories
Connecting

Dusty Thoughts

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I was cleaning out my old email when I found an outgoing email with the following:

There is no warmth among the wires. It’s only plastic, and metal, and electricity.

That was long ago, but this is now.