A new magazine called “Radar” is working on beating drums for itself by running an article that profiles how college students working for Disney party hardy in their dorms after hours, blowing off steam after a long day of steaming inside their hot Mickey and Minnie costumes.
I will be making sure to avoid this magazine.
I mean, how in the world does this qualify as news? College students are horny and act on their impulses in seclusion after hours. This is NEWS? This rates an article ANYWHERE, much less in the New York Daily News and CBS Evening news?
First off, the fact that Disney employees blow off steam after hours is something I found out twenty years ago, when someone slipped me a brilliantly satirical video filmed on the fly in the Park tunnels after hours. Called “Captain Eeyore,” it was a shot-for-shot parody of “Captain EO” except featuring Disney costumed characters. You have not lived until you’ve seen Eeyore moonwalking. So a new concept this is not.
So we’ve got over-18 Park employees, on their own time, in the privacy of their secluded dorm, doing whatever the hëll they want, and it doesn’t impact on their interaction with tourists during the day. So flipping what? The author of the magazine claims that there are “legends” of character actors mixing with the public while still stoned or hungover. Okay. “Legends.” Trot out the proof that it’s ever happened, and/or that it’s a pervasive problem, or shut the hëll up.
Understand, I don’t view Disney through rose-colored Mickey glasses. I’m busy reading “Disney War.” I have no illusions. But this…this is just crap journalism. It’s sensationalistic twaddle, and the NY Daily News (which, by the way, cops to the fact that its chairman and publisher is co-chairman of “Radar”) and any other news venue which picks this up should be ashamed of themselves.
PAD
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“If you suspect I am enjoying sparring with you, you are somewhat correct. I have seldom encountered such a bloated ego, and I relish investigating it, but this is not a formal experiment.”
Okay…I’m going to walk you through this just once, and then not bother with you again unless you actually say something worthwhile.
The point of argumentation and debating is never, NEVER, to try and convince your opponent. The chances of that happening are monumentally slim.
The point of argumentation and debating is trying to convince others that you are right and your opponents are wrong.
You have failed at this. If it’s of any consolation, you’ve failed spectacularly. You’re like the Black Knight, armless and legless, threatening to bite my kneecaps. Talking with you isn’t debating or agumentation in any true sense. It’s more like slowing down and looking in wonderment at a burning factory fire or a jack knifed tractor trailer. You just can’t believe it. You say stupid things, and when the stupidity is pointed out, you reiterate it more forcefully, like a tone-deaf singer believing he can make up for lack of melody by upping the volume.
Do you understand now? (You needn’t answer; it’s rhetorical, since I think we all know the answer.)
PAD
Peter,
You may want to consider having your admin create a CSS class to color the text of a post to a lighter color, between, say #666666 and #999999, and have him swap it in for Jeffrey’s posts. You wouldn’t be censoring him, but it would give people the opportunity to skip over his posts if they like, especially for threads you want to nurture in a specific direction without major disruption.
PAD: You say that the point of argumentation is never to try to convince your opponent. OK. If that is true, why did you wate your breath telling me that? You must not have any intention of or expectation of changing my opinion. In my own experience, argumentation has sometimes resulted in a change of opinion by one side or the other. It can be more than a competitive sport before a judging panel; It can be a conversation between people. Even though I obviously do not have a high opinion of you, it is still shocking to read that you never have any expectation of convincing anyone that they are wrong. I previously believed you had sufficient confidence in your intellect to think it possible. I MUST HAVE BEEN WRONG. Oh, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
One of your most common tactics is to declare that something is the case and feign amazement that anyone is so stupid as to disagree. Before you retort, yes, I have done the same, but it would be childish to use the old “he did it too” defense. Any offense you could imagine has probably been committed before, but you really shouldn’t take that as a license.
Jeffrey, you keep asking these questions from, like, Planet Vulcan, founded on people behaving like robots. If you can be made to see your own limitations, it may get you to use your powers more for good rather than the borg overloads you now seem to be rolling out the red carpet for.
Like a lot of people, Peter seems to be someone who is about realizing possibilities as much as anything else. The approach to arguing as he described it allows others who are all about realizing possibilities their nature. Arguing is subordinate to a function he gives higher priority to.
You’re picking apart his casualness in presenting this — but your picking apart has nothing to do with realizing possibilities. Peter may just have different priorities than you, and you pressuring others to abandon their casualness isn’t allowing others their own nature.
When people review your posts and see how you degrade the realization of possibilities in this manner — well, why should anyone sacrifice their own nature for you? What do they have to gain that they have to smother the very nature of realizing possibilities itself?
… right down to predicting what PAD’s argument will be and ridiculing him for the response-yet-to-be.
Talk about bizarre.
Mike, why is it from planet Vulcan to believe one might be able to change someone else’s opinion? I would think it is merely being confident in being a part of society. True, I am not going to change PAD’s opinion about anything. That is quite obvious, but his opinions about “argumentation” seem very strange to me, for the reasons I mentioned. That you believe it is Vulcan to carry on a conversation with any expectation other than to score points with the judges is also disturbing. The “realizing possibilities” you discuss sounds more like autism than anything else: total obliviousness to human interaction. In my experience, it can be much better than that.
Fred Chamberlain: You are “smothering the very nature of realizing possibilities itself.” I hope Mike can forgive you that. As for myself, we don’t agree, which is not a big deal, to me.
Jeffrey, the “smothering the very nature of realizing possibilities itself” label strikes me as an odd one since my profession focuses on observing behavior and promoting growth.
As far as whether or not we agree, that point is really not debatable since I’ve not added any of my own opinion towards or against your stance. I’ve merely tossed out an objective observation of your behavior. The statement of yours that I commented upon indicates mind-reading/fortune-telling and is in fact a cognitive distortion and bizarre.
Jeffrey,
You might want to reitire at least two of your arguments:
1- The “I thought you were an intelligent person who was not suffering from an advanced stage of tertiary syphillus, but I now see that I was sadly mistaken.” canard. Yeah,we get it, you are claiming that you respected PAD but have learned the error of your ways. I don’t believe it for a minute but I get it.
2- Any variation on the “As for myself, we don’t agree, which is not a big deal, to me.” riff. Of course you care. It’s only because you so obviously care that people have been fairly gentle. Based on previous troll infestations however it may just be a matter of time before you cross over the line into pure offensiveness.
Is it possible this is some kid form another comics artist’s board, coming over here to stir šhìŧ so that he can go back and report on how mean we were to him? “They threatened to BEAT me with a sock full of marbles!”
Ok, I just gave you as dignified an out as you are going to get, and you refused it over my employment of the word “Vulcan” to frame your practice of argument sterilization. There is no analogy that isn’t vulnerable to that kind of logic sterilization.
Since all language is founded on some form representation or another, all anyone can imagine is that you’re just, like, addicted to your own adrenaline or something beyond reason.
Again, there’s no defense against your relentless, Lennie-like personal agenda.
Fred Chamberlain: The “smothering…” was a jibe at Mike, who had just used that term about my objecting to PAD’s view of argumentation. Since you did not find it funny, it was a failure as a joke, but it was not an attack on you. As to our disagreement, you believe my behavior is bizarre, I do not, and I do not intend to insult you about this, as it is entirely your right to think what you will. That, nonetheless, is where we disagree.
Bill Mulligan: It is your own affair to believe what you do, but it is a fact that I did respect PAD’s talent as a writer, and also a fact that his statements here have diminished him in my eyes. To be fair, his talent is not affected by this; I just don’t have any respect for the man. As for this hypothetical other site, I have no such intention of doing what you predict, but PAD says one cannot expect to convince an opponent of anything, so, if he is right, it is pointless to say so (or for anyone to say anything about any subject). The best way to avoid accusations that even you foresee is not to feed them: You shouldn’t joke about socks full of marbles, for example, if you are not comfortable having the matter brought up again with someone who isn’t in lockstep with your own beliefs. (If you don’t say something, it is quite easy to deny saying it, but if you do, the comment lingers on, whether it is convenient or not.)
Mike: Apparently you are disappointed by my failure to agree with your assessment of me. Please look above to PAD’s comments on NEVER expecting to convince any opponent of anything in an argument. If he is correct, which I doubt, you should not be wasting your time disagreeing with me, nor should PAD have any interest in maintaining any form of site other than a very sterile fansite. Despite his stated philosophical view, somehow this site has frequently had much more depth than that. Whatever could be the explanation for that? It is possible that he has made a MISTAKE? As scandalous and unlikely as that may sound, it is possible. About “Lennie,” you know this reference, and I do not, so its effectiveness, whether as a description or an insult, is minimal.
If you wanna play, I got some time to play.
The “realizing possibilities” you discuss sounds more like autism than anything else: total obliviousness to human interaction. In my experience, it can be much better than that.
This is a good example of how you can employ what we all recognize as English, yet not have any of the words count for anything.
As far as I can engage in lay-speak and still represent autism with any accuracy, the conventional understanding of autism isn’t founded in what the subject is attempting, but in being overwhelmed by sensation.
Your description of autism as an attempt by the subject to realize something is an arbitrary slapping together of words. A nurturance of a manifestation of any kind is a realization of something.
According to you, all of these people in agreement that you’re a ‘tard isn’t a consensus of any kind.
Live long and prosper, Jeffrey Frawlennie.
If you wanna play, I got some time to play.
This is a good example of how you can employ what we all recognize as English, yet not have any of the words count for anything.
As far as I can engage in lay-speak and still represent autism with any accuracy, the conventional understanding of autism isn’t founded in what the subject is attempting, but in being overwhelmed by sensation.
Your description of autism as an attempt by the subject to realize something is an arbitrary slapping together of words. A nurturance of a manifestation of any kind is a realization of something.
According to you, all of these people in agreement that you’re a ‘tard isn’t a consensus of any kind.
Live long and prosper, Jeffrey Frawlennie.
Mike, now I know that you like to discuss “Lennie.” That is not very useful information, but that’s fine, I guess. Would Lennie enjoy sending the same post twice? If so, I am not Lennie, as I am indifferent to the practice.
“The best way to avoid accusations that even you foresee is not to feed them: You shouldn’t joke about socks full of marbles, for example, if you are not comfortable having the matter brought up again with someone who isn’t in lockstep with your own beliefs. (If you don’t say something, it is quite easy to deny saying it, but if you do, the comment lingers on, whether it is convenient or not.)”
Why on Earth would I be uncomfortable in your bringing up something I said, since your interpretation of it makes you look like a shmuck? My conjecture–and it was purely that, just one guy trying to make sense out of what seems to be a great deal of senselessness–was one that would be consistant with the level of childishness that has been employed by people in the past.In no way shape or form does that possibility alarm me. Amuse me, sure. But please don’t fret about having made me feel uncomfortable.
Surely you realize that you have failed to convince anyone here of much anything, much less to alter the way we communicate with each other. A better man might wonder if his arguments were flawed or if his delivery was counter productive. A lesser man would probably just brush off the rejection as what is to be expected from mindless zombies.
Jeffrey, my point was so beautifully made, the typo in my first attempt broke my heart, so I reposted my devastating point. Kinda like this:
Some college interns made a website called Vista Lay (Vista Way’s nickname)….If anyone is curious, feel free to send me a message or just ask in the next post and I’ll put up the website.
Okay, I’m curious: what’s the URL?
OK, to get beyond the trolling and back to the issue at hand, who said this was news at all? Radar doesn’t really/won’t really print news stories; it’ll print feature stories. There’s a difference. A news story should, hopefully, have the up-to-the-minute importance PAD was looking for. A feature story is just an interesting story. Doesn’t have to be new, doesn’t have to be important — just has to be interesting.
And this? Sounds passably interesting, at least. And sure, it’s designed to capture attention. Why wouldn’t a new magazine trying to make an impression on the market try to capture attention?
My issue is far more with the so-called legitimate news outlets, such as the New York Daily News or the CBS Evening News. I mean, CBS used to be the gold standard of news reportage, and now they’re reporting this as if it’s an article that qualifies as anything other than tripe.
PAD
Originally posted by: Rafael at May 14, 2005 12:30 AM
Some college interns made a website called Vista Lay (Vista Way’s nickname)….If anyone is curious, feel free to send me a message or just ask in the next post and I’ll put up the website.
Id like to see that saucy website also.
id love to lick the girl inside the minnie mouse costumes sweaty feet after she has taken them out of her tights
How does that policy hold up if Minnie Mouse is portrayed by a guy named Lou?