Fasteriskhead

[quote name='goladith']One thing I gotta say, was I was raised with tolerance to all religions.[/quote]I may perhaps be taking your statement too broadly, goladith, but this may be worth discussing. In contemporary discussion there's a lot of talk involving this word "tolerance," especially in discussion about religion. Sometimes there's some nuance to this talk, but not often. Usually it simply amounts to "tolerance good, intolerance bad" - except if we mean "tolerance" in a pejorative way, which is when we call it political correctness. Obviously none of this means anything. Anyways, I'd like to see if I can address the topic, even if it shoots well away from the Mormonism issue. What is tolerence? Well, let's picture a situation where the guy who lives across the street from us behaves oddly - let's say he's painted his house neon pink, installed a giant statue of Joey Ramone on his patio, and so forth. How do we react to this? First, let's say we get offended; we might begin by complaining to the homeowner's association, then (if he doesn't change his ways) try to find a way to get him to pick up and leave, and then finally (if still no results) rent a backhoe and pull down Joey a la Saddam Hussein. This is a "thin-skinned" reaction. Alternatively, let's say we decide to [i]tolerate[/i] our neighbor's oddities. What does this mean? It means that we shrug it off, that we put up with it - this is so obvious that I shouldn't even need to say it. Basically we don't take offense, we don't try to get rid of what we're putting up with. But let's think this through a little further. At what point do we talk about tolerance [i]ending?[/i] If we've considered this even a little bit, we have to know that our shrugging things off has to come to an end somewhere: a neighbor being annoying is something very different from, say, a serial murderer who's just broken in through our window. But WHAT is that difference, exactly? Obviously we have to answer: because the second example [i]matters[/i]. We say that we can put up with a lot, but when our lives or our loved ones or our principles are on the line, we can't "tolerate" it any longer; if we could, we would basically be relativists (and I have yet to meet any relativists). Let's think for a minute about what we've just said. Why don't we put up with the murderer in our house? Because our lives [i]matter[/i], because it's something important. But if we say this, isn't the reverse also true? That is, if we're "shrugging off" our obnoxious neighbor, aren't we doing it because the pink house and Joey aren't really important and don't really carry any weight? But now, [i]what have we just said here[/i]? When we say that we "tolerate" all religions, then, are we basically saying to all the Jews, all the Buddhists, and the whole rest of the role call, that their religions [i]don't matter?[/i] This seems to be exactly the opposite of what we mean when we call ourselves tolerant, and yet it makes a kind of sense. What has been our society's leading stance on religion, after all? We're perfectly happy to allow anyone to "believe" whatever they want, so long as it doesn't actually effect us in any meaningful way. Thomas Jefferson: "...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." What matters here is not the gods or the lack of gods, and CERTAINLY not what one's neighbor believes, but the condition of one's leg and pocket. So we say, with the full support of the founding fathers: "Sure, go ahead and be a Hindu if you want. Great! But perform any weird rituals on my lawn and I'm calling the cops." Does this mean that we're hypocrits and there's really no such thing as tolerance? No, it just means that we have limits... or, better, it means that in the end there are still some things that we care about. It's worth noting that usually we only ever describe tolerance negatively, i.e. in "nots": NOT taking offense, NOT reacting badly, NOT taking religion as anything important (with the more extreme reading above), etc.. At best we might call it "accepting," but that then assumes we know what accepting means. In any case, we're quite right to wonder if we've really been using the word "tolerance" in this way, or if all along we might have meant something else. By writing all of this am I saying that tolerance is a bad thing? Not necessarily. I don't think it's a stretch to say that we currently live in the most "accepting" period in history - this is a deep improvement, as any minority can tell you. But with all of this tolerance, we seem to have also arrived in a world where very little matters. Human beings live in their own carefully sealed-off territories, only interacting with people who are truly [i]other[/i] in heavily controlled, abstracted, superficial ways. Hence myspace, hence ipods, hence something as simple as how people shop at the grocery store (staring straight ahead, never making eye contact). We no longer try to [i]destroy[/i] what's different, but the price has been that we no longer really react to the different at all. My hope is that my generation (and the generation of most of the folks reading this) will begin to seriously think about this, which has to mean more than just condemning "apathy" from on high. My [I]fear[/I] is that we won't even catch sight of the problem.

Actually, there are a couple of denominations of Mormonism which split off from the main LDS Church at one time or another who still practice polygamy, although obviously they're well in the minority. The topic of Mormonism and polygamy is a very interesting one, both historically and theologically - personally, I think that in a very strange way the issue is very much related to the question of who was supposed to succeed Joseph Smith (although obviously when the church officially renounced the practice... what? around the turn of the century?... it was mainly to keep the feds off their back). As for why Mormons get ridiculed, you've got me. I would think it has something to do with it being a sect that formed in fairly recent memory - unlike, say, first temple Judaism, you can actually go and find newspapers from the time, records, testimonies, still-intact historical sites, etc.. Maybe that takes some of the magic away. And yes, there's the polygamy thing AND the Jesus visiting America thing AND the finding two ancient tablets thanks to an angel thing, although frankly I haven't quite grasped how any of this is more strange than dunking a kid in water. Personally I don't really make fun of Mormons - not because I think it's wrong or unjustified, but mainly because I haven't put in the work necessary. I would say the following to my fellow amateurs out there. We can either keep making the same four dumb jokes about Mormons over and over again (1. they have a silly religion, 2. they marry lots of people, 3. they annoy by way of handing out free pamphlets, 4. they dress way too neatly and are way too polite/organized and don't drink booze or coffee), or we can give it up for awhile and leave it to the pros; Mormons are much, MUCH better at making fun of Mormonism than we are. If one is even to make it to the minor leagues as far as ridiculing something goes, it requires a lot of work and not a little respect for the thing getting roasted.

It's a pretty good little show, I can see why it and the manga have been so popular. Quick plot synopsis: it's about two girls (both named Nana) who decide to move to Tokyo at the same time, meet on the train there, and get an apartment together in order to save on rent. Nana #1 is a puppylike extrovert who enjoys cute things, new fashions, and older men, and constantly swings from one emotional extreme to another. Nana #2 is a chain-smoking stoic punk rock singer who hasn't changed her look since the release of Never Mind The Bollocks. Story concerns mostly involve the two of them trying to make something of themselves, as well as dealing with their long-term boyfriends (these two concerns are actually related thematically, which I won't get into). Personally, I would whine a little about pacing. You've got your first episode, which is a ton of fun, but this is followed up by a whole [i]fleet[/i] of flashback episodes to let you in on each of the leads; only after that do you really get an "episode 2." So basically you end up waiting a month and a half for the show to reach its starting point proper, which was somewhat torturous for me. It's worth the effort to reach the good stuff where the two Nanas finally get to play against each other, though, and I'm glad I pushed through it. Anyways: it's a fine series, although it doesn't have quite the punch necessary to "cross over" if this kind of stuff didn't already appeal to you. If you're into shoujo, especially the more mature varieties, then you're probably already all over this thing like ants at a picnic. If you are but haven't tried it yet... well, what are you waiting for? Nothing better than this has been made for you this season.

There is a period of about six to seven minutes in episode 12 (no idea what it is on Haruhi's count) which is pretty much the single greatest thing the series has pulled off so far. It is absolute poetry, folks. I won't spoil it for anyone - I'll only say that I did [I]not[/I] expect Haruhi to [spoiler]sing alto[/spoiler].

Well, the easiest thing would be to write the essay about how the quote is Emerson's "opinion" on how people should live their lives, i.e. questioning everything, being individualistic, sticking to one's own "beliefs," and so on. This would seemingly be supported by the rest of the paragraph around the quote (all from the essay "Self-Reliance," which is short and worth a read): [quote][SIZE=1]Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, ? "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.[/SIZE][/quote]There may be another way of reading this quote, of course, although it would probably stray from your teacher's intentions. Emerson says here, in one of the most famous quotes of American thinking: "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string." Trust means to put faith in something - "faith" here not meaning just believing that something exists, but rather being [i]gripped[/i] and held by a power that demands our attention. For Emerson that power is I myself (it's no accident that he states, "God is here within"). "Trusting thyself" then means something like being gripped in one's own power. "The power which resides in [man] is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried." But eventually it may happen that we catch a glimpse of such a power. We realize our own potential, our "genius," our power as a productive and artistic being that can "new date and new create the whole." And such a glimpse may spur us on, or it may scare us away. It could be the devil, after all! But do we UNDERSTAND this power, i.e. do we [i]see[/i] where it's coming from or know how it works at all? No, for Emerson this is impossible. We do not grip our own creative power, it grips us. Thus: "And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now nearest approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way... the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new." The original quote, again, was: [quote][SIZE=1]Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.[/SIZE][/quote]We should especially look at that last sentence. What does it mean to "absolve me to myself"? Absolve has the general sense of setting free or detaching. To be absolved into myself can then only mean being [i]released[/i] into myself, or in other words, released into the "grip" of my own power in such a way that that power is no longer something alien or terrifying ("the devil"), but is essentially what I already am. Philosophy and theology, at least, have a long history of understanding this idea as "freedom." Emerson thus asks us to free ourselves into our own nature, that is, into our creative power. What does "you shall have the suffrage of the world" mean? Suffrage has the more familiar meaning of the ability to vote, but Emerson seems to be using it in an older sense. Suffrage here means lending support. Does the statement then say that the man who is "freed" into his own creativity will be "supported" by a community of adoring fans? Not as such, no: Emerson frankly doesn't give a damn about being popular. On support, Emerson says: "Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet." On the world: "A true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature." To have the suffrage of the world, then, can't possibly mean to be popular. It has to mean BEING this "centre of things," and allowing the world and nature to rise up and support that center. For Emerson, the one who has been freed into its own power is the basis for measuring "you, and all men, and all events," all of which now orient around the power of the "true man" and establish him in history. The meaning of the first sentence of the quote ("Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind") should now be obvious as well. It's not just that Emerson wants us to be "individualistic" and so on - if nature itself is oriented around the power of man (power here meaning the same thing as integrity), then there is no value or "sacredness" to [I]anything[/I] except that which does the orienting. This is a difficult quote, and good luck working on it in your essay. I hope I've helped a little, or at least confused things (and I hope I haven't posted this too late!).

Well, this discussion has gotten pointless rather fast. And by "pointless" I don't mean sillyor lacking in meaning, I mean we've lost sight of what we were supposed to be talking about. What is the purpose of a discussion of this kind? "Self-expression"? To "win," i.e. to show oneself off as the more wise and moral person and reveal all the flaws of the others? Nonsense. The purpose of discussion is to have what is discussed [i]reveal[/i] itself to us more fully. The question is where we're basically focusing our attention, on what is to be clarified or on something else. Okay, cards on the table. Do we even know what we're talking about here? The topic is "Gay Marriage and President Bush," or specifically the current efforts of Bush supporting an amendment that would make gay marriage illegal and illegitimate. More widely, we're discussing an attempt to define an absolute boundary for what kind of marriage is acceptable. Now, there's been a lot of discussion in this thread about rights, about objections to others' lifestyles, about the role of government in personal choice, about "sins" (not Sin with a big S), especially about "beliefs," and I think there's even one or two posts that drop the L-word (errr... love, not lesbians). All of this is important. But have we even started on the question that all of this is really about, namely, [i]what is marriage?[/i] Or maybe this is a pointless question to ask. After all, everyone already knows what marriage is, and we can point to the white dresses and bouquets to prove it. But then, why do we get confused when we try to define it? If we're at all honest, we can maybe get out "marriage is a union" before we have to stop. We might say that a marriage between a dog and a television isn't really a marriage - except that in a certain sense it [i]is[/i], it's just one that's gone wrong and is disallowed. So maybe the question is pointless not because everyone already knows what marriage is, but because everyone's own definition is "different" and we can't make sense of everyone else's "subjective" "beliefs." And now we've been relieved of the burden of asking or discussing anything as there's really no such thing as discussion, just overgrown monkeys shouting at each other (with some monkeys being more polite than others). But maybe this isn't right (obviously, I hope it isn't). Maybe the reason why those on the religious right are so concerned with legally defining marriage is because they've understood better than most of us (although in a completely stupid way) that for the most part we've actually forgotten what marriage means. This ignorance on our part is not going to be helped by adding a new section to the highest document in U.S. law, nor even by some return to "traditional values." We have to go back to the source, i.e. the topic of our current discussion. So finally we may have to ask: what is marriage? A joining-together between people in love? A social construct serving a useful function, to reproduce and create kinship ties? A religiously-sanctioned ceremony which justifies (i.e. makes righteous) an earthly couple? A "legal contract," as silver_blade says, between citizens and the state? None of these are really wrong, but we get nowhere by saying that they're all correct. If we're going to understand at any greater depth, we have to try and "catch" marriage in a more fundamental way. This can only begin to happen when we [i]pay attention[/i] to marriage. Which means: paying attention to how the word slips out of our mouths, what the ceremony means, how married couples and their friends/relatives think and behave, and maybe most importantly, the HISTORY of this word's appearance - Shakespeare didn't think marriage the same way we do, for instance. I'm maybe cheating a little by not saying anything beyond this, but this is enough to start with. A sensible person will probably know immediately that this entire post is just pretentious longwinded "postmodern" crap. The real issues are about RIGHTS and PERSONAL BELIEFS and THE NATURE OF GOVERNMENT, and have nothing to do with BS bad philosophy like "what marriage is" or whether or not we "pay attention" to it. We only waste time with that kind of thing... right?

Re: episode 10 - the imagined scene of [spoiler]the club memebers visiting a Haruhi living in abject poverty[/spoiler] is so utterly priceless that I find myself wishing that it was actually true. "In order to serve something good enough for you guys, I've been fasting for three days to save up money for the food! [holding up discounted supermarket sushi]" I'm not about to spoil anyone about Haruhi's dad, Ryouji. He's something special, and the moment where he first appears is not to be ruined.

It's a cynical attempt to shore up the traditional voting bloc of the right - everyone involved in this knows how impossibly difficult it is to amend the constitution, and they're looking to have it fail nobly to score brownie points with the traditionalists. It should be remembered that in the 2004 elections Bush actually supported the idea of civil unions (in that sense following Kerry). It's a long, long way from that to amending the constition with a definition of what marriage is, so perhaps the core of the Republican party is even more in open revolt than any of us thought. On the wider questions of gay marriage itself and Bush as a whole, I'll hold off for now.

I'm not going to disabuse anyone of the belief in a real, or even a physically extant, Heaven or Hell. But some aspects of it are, I think, worth questioning, particularly as to whether they have anything to do with Christianity. When we die, our essential "goodness" or "badness" (or alternatively, our good or bad deeds), are examined and balanced against each other. If the good part wins out, then we head up to heaven for a blissful eternity united with God. If the bad part wins out, it's down to hell for an eternity of suffering. For the moment, never mind the historical origin of these ideas (which do NOT come from the Christian bible... or at least, not from any reading that isn't very very choosy). The central event in Christianity is the terrible, inglorious execution of Jesus, and the ramifications of that moment (including the resurrection). This event is described and understood with an extraordinary, often shocking power by Paul, by John, by Peter, and by the gospel writers. Now [i]what[/i], praytell, does this have to do with saying: "Watch out! Do what you're supposed to do and God will reward you, but be bad and you're really going to get it!" As far as I know, no serious Christian thinker has thought anything like this since at least the Renaissance, and probably they NEVER have. "Heaven" is mentioned quite a lot in the NT, particularly in Matthew, but never like this. Gehenna and Sheol (usually translated in a thoughtless way) are also mentioned or inferred, again particularly in Matthew, but they have to be understood in a very specific way... having to do with the NT writers' very unique understanding of what death is. And finally, in theology ideas of heaven and hell are sometimes brought up, true, but never naively and always with great care. But more important than this, what exactly is such an idea saying about Christianity? That the purpose of "being good" is just to get into heaven? Certainly this isn't true; we only need pay attention to Christians, who by no means only do good to keep themselves "in the black," to see that for the most part they know better. Yet it does reveal a worrying kind of hubris, one shown particularly in response to questions about [i]why[/i] one has to believe in heaven, hell, or God at all. Too many of the answers to this that I've heard, from people I know and respect, boil down to: "Because if there's no heaven or hell, why be good? If there's no God, what meaning is there to anything at all?" How dare we! As if God was at our beck and call. As if God's entire purpose was to make our lives "meaningful." This particular idolatry leads to a very dark place, something that's been understood for a long time. Isn't meaninglessness [i]exactly[/i] the threat posed by the cross, which Christians must "take up every day?" Isn't meaninglessness [i]exactly[/i] what Jesus confronts when he cries out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" If so, what an insult to take this threat of meaninglessness as something to be avoided at all costs; what egotism to believe in heaven, hell, and God only because without "faith" in something like them we would be confronted with a senseless world. We should ask the question: at what point in the gospels does Jesus ever have to "believe" in anything, in the sense that we use the term? I may be accused of being "intolerant" for writing all this, which is fair enough. But I respect Christianity too much to let it be untrue to itself, especially on something as important as this. On the death question (the actual topic): death is precisely the thing that we can [i]never[/i] know about, and has to be approached with this in mind. It's not something we'll ever experience, because "experience" means there's still an us left to experience anything. We can guess from watching other people die that when it happens our bodies will probably stop moving, collapse, and eventually rot... but this isn't the same as understanding death as dying ourselves. Is saying that we can never "know" death also to say that we should ignore it, refuse to talk about it at the risk of making ourselves sound silly? No. Because if we're really paying attention we can learn what our immanent death [i]means[/i], although this isn't the same as grasping death mentally as something knowable and predictable. Understanding what death [i]means[/i] is something very rare, and I can't go into it here. It deserves more discussion than it gets in our usual halfhearted admissions that yeah, we're going to die "someday." But discussing like this doesn't mean picking and choosing which kind of afterlife we prefer, or talking about what dying is going to feel like. As Heraclitus says, we shouldn't make random guesses about the most important things.

[quote name='Dagger']However, I do have a dire complaint--how can Kyon not like girls with glasses!? I call shenanigans. ;)[/quote]Yes, Kyon needs to seriously reconsider the whole "Yuki cuter without glasses" thing. Although it probably says something about how ultimately shallow I am that for my favorite character I immediately go for the stoic girl with glasses who reads all the time. Also: considering how popular this thing is, if it doesn't get AT LEAST one more season then I'll eat my DVD collection. More than likely we'll be bombarded with specials, ovas and video games until we're all completely sick of it, but until then we can enjoy Haruhi tormenting Mikuru on a regular basis for a good span of time.

It's a fine show, certainly far better than that overblown excuse for a tech demo that was the Blood movie. Get set for the long haul, though - the series is a full 52 episodes, and takes at least a dozen of those before it even finds its footing. It has a lot of trouble pacing itself (as previously mentioned), and also has a very bad habit of killing off many of its more interesting characters. The last episode I saw (32) particularly annoyed me in this area. However, if you give it legroom then occasionally the series can be downright brilliant, and there are a couple of these really spectacular episodes which rank among the best moments of the past year. You should also get used to Haji sawing his way through the fifth Bach cello suite over and over again, as the dude apparently does not know how to play any other piece of music. I guess he just keeps his A-string tuned down to G all the time, and is too lazy to tune it back to normal and try out some other music?

[quote name='Aaryanna][COLOR=SeaGreen']Anyway I think Fasteriskhead described the real problem. The potential to be comfortable with a little knowledge without understanding where it came from or even attempting to see if what we just read is even true.[/COLOR][/quote]Well, not exactly, and I apologize for being unclear on this. Certainly it's important to fact check, make sure that whatever you're picking up seems reliable, and so on, but this has [I]nothing[/I] to do with the kind of questioning I'm asking about (which is why I said that skepticism missed the point). Checking and rechecking has to come to an end somewhere - at what point have I furnished enough proofs of a equation to show that it's correct, or how many times do I need to check the stove before I leave for the day to make sure that it's turned off? Obviously this becomes quite silly after a certain point, but that doesn't mean that after enough checking something is simply "known" to be true... which is understood in a very tragic way by those with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Here, though, it's enough to indicate that "certainty" in the sense of being sure of something (that an equation is correct, that the stove really is off) relies more on non-doubt than our confidence actually according with reality. From the above, someone will probably accuse me of saying that we can't really "know" anything - this is nonsense, not to be taken seriously. Because the big riddle is that we [I]do[/I] know things (I know my name, I know the street I live on, I know that I have two hands and two feet), no matter whether those things are true in the sense of agreeing with an external reality. "What's at the root of all that knowledge," as I said earlier, then has nothing to do with checking the sources of a fact or checking that a fact is well-supported by evidence (although these things are important in a different sense). Rather, the question is what makes it possible to know and understand anything [I]at all[/I] - or, if you prefer, what must be absolutely necessary for a consciousness to apprehend experience in a meaningful way. And probably I should leave it at that... unless someone really wants a lecture or something. (sorry for being somewhat off-topic, but I thought I should clarify myself)

What? Didn't you see the sign on my chest? The one right above "pedant," just left of "windbag"? Seriously though, in an age with google and wikipedia specialized knowledge comes very cheap indeed. Anyone interested in almost any topic (for their own curiosity, as part of a discussion, for something that came up at work or home, etc.) can make themselves aware of the basics of that topic within the space of ten minutes. To me this is, without reservation, a good thing. It offers the [I]possibility[/I] (not necessarily the [I]actuality[/I], mind) of a population much more basically familiar with many broad areas of knowledge. They won't be anywhere near a professional level, of course, but at the very least it might get people in different spheres to be able to understand one another in a rudimentary way. Pseudointellectuals can at least follow what the real professionals are [I]saying[/I], which is not to be overlooked. The danger isn't "pseudointellectualism," if we mean that word to just mean people who show off and spit back words they read in the Times editorial page. One can certainly criticize them for being half-assed, but they're really off to the side in the long run. The real danger of all this is that we might begin to think that we already have everything worth knowing (or, if we don't, then that knowledge is there to be grabbed whenever we need it, and we can also take in whatever shows up in new investigations). This isn't really something new, obviously. But it's still all too easy to get into the habit of just collecting facts without ever asking any fundamental questions about what's at the [I]root[/I] of all that knowledge. (but asking questions in this sense doesn't mean being "skeptical," as in questioning the reality of some facts or even all facts - mere skepticism misses the point)

[quote name='Dagger']While you talked about this a little more later on, when you mentioned types within types, I think that calling him a clown king character is wandering away from the original joke--because he is still a typical shoujo prince character, but Haruhi (and pretty much Haruhi alone; the twins are just a corollary to that) undoes him.[/quote]Certainly, I agree completely, especially the "Haruhi undoes him" part. What you're getting with Tamaki is, if I can speak a little too schematically, a kind of tripartite intersection between three "streams" that both develop into one another and, especially here in the meat of the series, occur all at the same time. First, he's simply the shallow romantic playboy prince - this is an act, as he himself seems to acknowledge. Second, he's a simpleminded and frequently childish dunce whose foolishness is only momentarily covered up by the "prince" demeanor - this is the "clown king" I named, which is probably a crappy term but I'll stick to it for now. Third, it turns out that at heart he really [I]is[/I] a romantic and a prince, and that beforehand this genuine nobility on his part was only covered over. It's especially this last stream that his relationship with Haruhi is bringing out (her "undoing" him), and which I think we'll see much more of as the series goes on. I don't think it's his "not always acting like a prince should" so much as it's his realizing that this prince role he's played for the ladies for so long really [I]is[/I] what's in him at his core, albeit in a much deeper and more heartfelt form. I should note, though, that this schema of development is probably as old as the "clown king" itself. And furthermore, it's really an absolutely shoujo kind of thinking all the way down... This (8) was a really good episode, extremely interesting in a lot of places - particularly in what was at stake in [spoiler]Haruhi's and Tamaki's fight,[/spoiler] and Haruhi's [spoiler]seeing right through Kyoya and beginning to understand him in terms of "merit."[/spoiler] Lots and lots of stuff going on, most of which I'm not really prepared to talk about in any depth. As for the fight, though, I don't think it can really be understood in terms of winning or losing (those are concepts mostly foreign to the genre anyways) so much as the fight itself "dropping away" because both characters have arrived at a deeper level of relation - this is mostly a nitpicking, though, and I think we basically agree. And yeah, the SM bit was great. [I]"Nani PLAY desuka?!?"[/I]

Good GOD that cave scene. And, yes, pretty much the rest of the episode as well. Could Haruhi be trying to compete with Ouran for sexual tension points? And let's not forget Yuki trying to be funny.

This is about the only unique recipe that I have. [B]FASTERISKHEAD'S KHEER REVOLUTION[/B] COOKING TIME: approx. 60-70 minutes. DIFFICULTY: very easy, assuming your arm won't fall off from all the stirring. SERVINGS: about three. (adjust amounts accordingly if you want more, although cooking times will then vary) INGREDIENTS: - 4 Cups (1 Quart) Whole Milk (do NOT try this with reduced fat milk, unless you like your kheer watery and thin) - 1/2 Cup Basmati Rice (other rice types are okay, but basmati works best. Adjust rice amounts based on personal preference, but do NOT go above 3/4 Cup or so) - 1/2 Cup Sugar (also adjustable, but for me this is about right) - 1 to 1 1/2 Teaspoons Cardamom (I love this stuff, so the amount I put in is on the high side. This will make your kitchen smell fantastic for at least two hours. Note: do NOT pay twelve dollars for a little bottle of cardamom at a supermarket, and the same goes for the basmati rice for that matter. Go find a local Indian grocery place and drop five bucks for a bag that's twice as big) - OPTIONAL: 3 Tablespoons Milk Powder (I like kheer very thick, and this helps firm it up. If you prefer, substitute a shot of half-and-half) - OPTIONAL: 1/3 Cup Slivered or Chopped Almonds - OPTIONAL: 1 Pinch Saffron - OPTIONAL: 1/2 Stick Cinnamon (I personally don't like kheer with cinnamon, since to me it conflicts with the cardamom; here it is if you want it, though, so be sure to adjust cardamom amounts accordingly) DIRECTIONS: 1. Pour the milk in a deep pot, and bring to a boil. Be VERY VERY CAREFUL not to turn the heat up too high, or you'll scald the milk (you'll know you've done this if you notice nasty brown chunks appear in your mix). I'm very paranoid about this, so I never bring the heat up further than a little over midway. STIR CONSTANTLY, keeping stuff off the sides and bottom as best you can. It usually takes about 20-25 minutes for a light boil to take form, and by that time the milk should be thickening nicely. 2. After you've got a light boil going, add the rice, sugar, and (if you're using it) the stick of cinnamon. KEEP STIRRING. Allow the rice to cook, which should take around 30 to 35 minutes (pick some out to test it). About 15 minutes into this the milk should really be thickening up, so add the milk powder (or half-and-half) if you're using it. Also add the almonds here. SERIOUSLY, KEEP STIRRING. 3. After the rice is cooked, add the cardamom and the saffron (if used). Turn the heat down a notch, STAY UP WITH THE STIRRING, and keep the stuff cooking until it's as thick as you want (I usually give it another 3-5 minutes at low heat). 4. Remove the kheer from heat and let it cool (it will thicken a lot more as it does so). After this, you can serve it at room temperature or throw it in the fridge for awhile (I personally prefer it cold). Enjoy!

[quote name='Heero yuy']A question that's been asked for years, and numerous times over and over. But it seems like things get a little "general" when people answere. [/quote]Generality is implied in the question, though. It asks how we react to other human beings whom we encounter who fall into a certain category (never mind for now how the category of sexuality is determined). Even under the best of circumstances, you're asking us to make a nongeneral statement about [i]half the people on the planet[/i]. I have trouble speaking in a specific way about just ONE person, let alone three billion. As for the "seeing someone attractive" question (which is obviously very different from the one in the topic), I've talked at very great length about this elsewhere - see my articles on Saikano and Kasimasi. And I [I]still[/I] don't think I've hit on anything really fundamental yet. Well, I can make a few general comments, maybe. First, what I do or don't do after seeing someone hot (try to get a conversation started, whatever) is less important, at least initially, than WHY I find them hot in the first place (and also how that sensation is experienced - but I can't go there here). Second, the answer to this "why" does NOT necessarily involve any particular aspect of the given hottie - we are attracted to PEOPLE, not check marks on a list of physical and mental qualities. I know I'm probably breaking the "be specific" rule, but I don't dare to throw off a haphazard answer to a question like this. I don't know what "being attracted" means yet.. or to be more specific, I DO know, but only in a completely tangled up and groundless way. Considering just how deeply our society is drenched in love, attraction, sexuality, dating culture &c., it constantly surprises me just how little of that stuff is understood explicitly. And all of this while we never think about the vague (but deeply-held) sense that it all got completely explained, solved, and brought out into the open back in the '60s or so, and that anyone who's been through middle school sex ed, read Romeo and Juliet, and can tell you what a "phallic symbol" is knows everything needed to know.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdJnDPkMArg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdJnDPkMArg[/url] This is pretty much self-explanatory.

I probably shouldn't do this, but... [quote name='あいとゆうきのおとぎばなし][SIZE=1]I want to read Tamaki?s role in this show so badly as like man?s fear of liberated female sexuality choosing a form of sexuality other than patriarichally-mediated heterosexuality. Tamaki, being the king (and is there any better symbol of patriarichal power?), feels like he should (and the genre conventions make it seem like he should) be entitled to Haruhi, but she constantly chooses anyone but him, whether it?s the faux gayness of the twins, the animal sexuality of Mori, the yuri-ness of other girls, and so on. I really like how there?s that gleeful threat. It?s like the exact opposite of the male harem comedy, where female bodies are like commodities. Here, not only is it inverted so that male bodies are the commodities, but the male who normally would get to participate in this practice of acquiring the female bodies/commodities not only does not get to, but is also has his impotence laughed at and humiliated. Not only that, but it feels like anyone could be paired up with anyone across age and sex boundaries.[/SIZE'] [/quote]Yes on the latter (anyone pairing up w/anyone), no on the former (Tamaki's constant failure and Haruhi's not falling for him indicating some kind of revolution against patriarchy). First of all, there's the simple factual correction that Haruhi really [I]never[/I] chooses one of the characters over the others. Unless I've REALLY been miswatching the series, she doesn't seem to play favorites, and the reason for this seems to be less a sense of "fairness" than just that how she thinks is really fundamentally different from all the other characters (this may be even more true of Renge). Second, Tamaki's failings are by no means subverting the "genre conventions;" the role he plays is specifically a kind of clown king (the guy who acts noble but comes off as silly and dumb to anyone with eyes to see), and that itself is at least as old as Shakespeare. As is, I might add, girls dressing up as guys. I don't know, it just strikes me as a little bit odd to try to read Ouran like this (in a basically feminist light); I don't think there's much support for it, and I think the only reason "Ai to Yuuki..." can do so is because it misreads basic aspects of how the characters act and how the show presents them. Now, it's true that Ouran has the sense that any member of the cast could conceivably be sleeping with any of the others (dojinshi creators, take note!). But I don't think this is anything more than a side effect of what the show's centrally trying to do, which is to push to the outer limits of shoujo. In this way it's quite a bit like Negima, as both take their genre's conventions to an absurd extreme and, as a result, end up with a glorious mess of a series that shudders, shakes, and rattles like an overloaded washing machine. But unlike Negima, which seeks to overwhelm by sheer force of quantity (zillions of girls, one prepubescent boy), Ouran mostly plays around with certain shoujo personality types. Among other things, it makes them self-aware, it gives them characteristics that make them contradict themselves (e.g. Honey, martial arts master). But [I]basically[/I] this is only a comedic radicalizing of one of shoujo's primary riffs, which is that a person who is one way "on the surface" is revealed as something completely different later on. I'm thinking a little about this. The question to approach the show (and, by extension, much of shoujo) with may turn out not at all to be whether it has subverted this or that norm (including "patriarichally-mediated heterosexuality"), but whether in revealing a character of a certain "type" as being something else we've really only in fact made them [I]another type[/I]. And, if so, where all these "types" come to an end. The show has already addressed this to some degree - I wonder if they'll follow up on it. [quote name='Dagger']While that's probably a textbook case of over-reading...[/quote]I resent that. Some of us make a living via over-reading. :animesmil

[QUOTE=Dagger]Argh! I forgot to watch last night's episode (episode 6). Would anyone care to give me a quick summary? Geez, this is like FMA all over again... it may take a while for me to get back into the habit of turning on the TV at the same time each week. :animesigh ~Dagger~[/QUOTE]6 is the [spoiler]"Eureka's kids screw with Renton"[/spoiler] episode; it also continues the proud mecha anime tradition of having said [spoiler]kids[/spoiler] completely endanger the lives of everyone around them. There's a more in-depth review [URL=http://ktkore.hitori-janai.net/?p=61]here[/URL]. Or, if you were interested in being able to actually [I]watch[/I] the episode... well, you didn't hear this from me, but if by random chance you were to google "eureka 7" and a word that rhymes with "tanashi" but starts with the letter between m and o, and if by random chance you were to see a file available that just happened to bear a striking resemblance to that episode in its original japanese... well, what a coincidence that would be, right?

Get a doctorate, snag an open professorship somewhere, and teach. While at the moment I believe myself to be a completely TERRIBLE teacher, the hope is that I can improve with time. Heidegger: "Teaching is even more difficult than learning. We know that; but we rarely think about it. And why is teaching more difficult than learning? Not because the teacher must have a store of information, and have it always ready. Teaching is more difficult than learning because what teaching calls for is this: to let learn. The real teacher, in fact, lets nothing else be learned than - learning. His conduct, therefore, often produces the impression that we properly learn nothing from him, if by 'learning' we now suddenly understand merely the procurement of useful information. The teacher is ahead of his apprentices in this alone, that he has still far more to learn than they - he has to learn to let them learn. The teacher must be capable of being more teachable than the apprentices. The teacher is far less assured of his ground than those who learn are of theirs. If the relation between the teacher and the taught is genuine, therefore, there is never a place in it for the authority of the know-it-all or the authoritative sway of the official. It is still an exalted matter, then, to become a teacher - which is something else entirely than becoming a famous professor."

Filler episodes are usually at their best when they involve pools, beaches, and other places giving the shows' characters an opportunity to put on swimwear.

Well, I just finished the series last night. I won't spoil it for anyone (even if I did the show's way too good to be ruined by something as petty as that), but I will say that the g's currently hating are going to be eating a lot of crow within the space of the next year or so.

Agreed, Haruhi has become one of my favorite characters of the season (despite the unfortunate name-sharing, noted in your sig, with the lead of a show that's probably going to determine the course of new TV anime for the next two or three years). I'm not sure how she's able to so perfectly mix starry-eyed innocence with being a huge smart*ss, but it works. Although, for me of course the best bits involving Haruhi are where she acts as an uncultured but industrious and endearing poor person and ends up making all the school's rich girls go completely nuts for her. (her predilection for food way, way too expensive for her is also cute) And yes, Renge is the best. "Otaku! Otaku da!!"

I have no idea what you're talking about. Uh, do people really "question their existence" though? I thought the heart of the Matrix dilemma was that people [i]didn't[/i] do this. Or to address another kind of questioning (if you'll excuse me for dropping the D-bomb), I thought the whole point of Descartes' famous "I think therefore I am" was to show that even if one doubts the existence of [i]everything[/i], that doubting still turns itself around and becomes a [i]confirmation[/i] that there has to, at least, be an extant thinking thing that doubts - i.e. myself. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with welcome mats, though.