Forsan et haec olim scripsisse iuvabit.

Both of those things shocked me.

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Some days I wonder about my species. I really do. (What's in the water in Wisconsin, anyway? I'm also following the whole budget crisis/union busting kerfuffle they're having ...)

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Ask CoM - she's the one who lived there and used to tell me tales about the giant penguins....

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Giant ... penguins? Wow.

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She was always commenting on the weird stuff they must be smoking in WI.

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yeah i saw the tree one and forgot to post it last night. the other...sigh. see this is why I need that week break from news

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I'm at least going to be away from things over the weekend -- birthday party for my youngest brother at my parents' house. Which is surrounded by trees. Not so sure about the gender politics, but I just won't bring it up.

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trees are good. have fun

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I did! No gender politics; lots of trees. Life is good.

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well good

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Tell

nebroadwe about the giant penguins of WI.

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okay WI has the most cryptozoology critters ever. (Check out the W-Files book for more).

They have seen: Giant Penguins, man-eating kanagroos, have TWO UFO capitols of the world, there is the BRay Road Beast (werewolf) between Madison and MIlwaukee, a lake monster in Lake Monona named Oaky (I think that's Oaky, my apt was across the street from the Lake so I occasionally went looking for him), there is so much more but that'll hold you.

Gah I miss living in WI. Okay not THIS month mind you but I do miss it

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You forgot that thing up by Zog. My brain is foggy today, I can't remember what it's called.

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the Hodag but it's been proven to have been faked (but I have photos)

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IT'S STILL A CLASSIC WI MONSTER.

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true

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I'm still stuck on the giant penguins. Do they waddle across back roads or steal cheese from windowsills or what?

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no one knows. only their footprints have been seen and vague shaped waddling near lakes

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seawasp

Well, the tree one is evil wingnuttery. The other... I'm not so sure. I was raised not to raise a hand to a woman either, to the point that the few times a girl or woman chose to attack me all I did was block and cover, ending with me taking hits. If I were a wrestler, I'd probably make the same decision he did, for the simple fact that I would know I would lose and, rather than lose with what would look like either incompetence or deliberately throwing the match, would prefer to gracefully withdraw. I wouldn't have any RELIGIOUS grounds, as he apparently does, but I don't see that this matters.

He chose to withdraw himself, he made NO disparaging comments about either the other person or her choice of hobby, and did not imply or state that she should be prevented from competing. This is in STARK contrast to the usual approach where people try to block others from playing or say there's something wrong with it.

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I agree with you that he wasn't an overt snot about it, which is helpful, and since he wasn't expecting to compete with a woman in this sport, he can't be blamed for putting himself in a situation he knew would be problematic. That said, I think he'd better either quit wrestling or find a league that's male-only. Otherwise, the next time this happens, he's refusing to compete with a fellow athlete because that person belongs to a particular category of persons he objects to seeing in that role, when clearly that athlete is capable of taking on that role. I have the same problem with men refusing to compete with women in open leagues that I have with Iranians refusing to compete with Israelis at the Olympics and, historically, whites refusing to compete with blacks. The "soft option" of refusing to compete with a person in a class of which you don't approve is problematic because, if enough people do it, that person is effectively barred from competition, even if there is no express rule against it. And the "men shouldn't hit women" rule, I think, logically applies only in situations where it's a corollary of "strong people don't hit weak people" (and a further corollary of "people shouldn't hit other people except in self-defense") -- in most cases, a man has the advantage in height, weight, reach, and strength over a woman. But in a sport like wrestling, which is divided into weight classes, that distinction is minimized; that's what the class divisions are for, after all. And it's a sport -- the intent isn't to injure your opponent (though that may happen). On the other hand, a perceived moral issue isn't the same psychological barrier as, say, overcoming the "Ack! I'm doomed!" feeling that a low-seeded athlete can get when facing someone much more experienced or skilled that s/he. So I'll give this wrestler some credit, but I still think his moral position is wrong and his action, though not intended maliciously, does have pernicious effects.

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seawasp

Well, we'll have to ATD. I think that if more women become a part of his sport he may find himself forced out due to his convictions, but if he continues to deal with it with the same calm grace, that's fine with me. If he or others started to try to say women couldn't play, that's different, but he isn't, hasn't been, and if he doesn't start then they only person he's hurting is himself -- for reasons that seem good and sufficient to him.

And as far as I know, a low-seeded athlete can choose to simply cede a match if they want to avoid a drubbing, so I don't even see that there's any real issue here. It's one thing to lose, it's another to get pwned, as the Leetspeakers would say.

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ATD, then. Always useful to have an exchange of views on this sort of topic that doesn't end in a shouting match. ;-)

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rudbekia.livejournal.com

I had known about the wrestling incident, but the trees one is new to me. I feel the same was about the wrestling as

seawasp, and the tree thing is pure evil.

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