What's up thread

[FZR1KG]

Hi squid! lol

[FZR1KG]

Almost finished tiling the kitchen. Just the grouting to do so tomorrow signals the end of major renovations of the house and I can concentrate more on the boat. Little things like making sure the mast won't fall in a blow and that we have steering.

[FZR1KG]

Tiling is done.
Looks much better.
I have multiple blisters including two blisters under blisters.
Now back on concentrating on the boat.
Time to make the brackets for the mast stays so the mast won't fall off.
Make some high strength hitching points for the series drogue and make a bracket for the radar.
Make the new steering system and finally I have to mount it all.
Then I go for a test sail...after I fix the head...

[cid]

...Then I go for a test sail...after I fix the head...

Good to see you have your priorities set correctly...

[Rommie]

Schindler's List is on TV and I'm a complete idiot watching it. (seen it before, but it somehow grabbed me) Good God I'm going to be fucking sick.

[pumpkinpi]

Schindler's List is on TV and I'm a complete idiot watching it. (seen it before, but it somehow grabbed me) Good God I'm going to be fucking sick.

That came out my senior year in high school. I went to see it with a group of my classmates. I'll never forget our silence on the way out of the theater and back home.

I'm wondering if I should watch it again, as an adult this time.

[Swift]

IMO its a great movie, but tough to watch.

[Rommie]

I think what's so fucking draining about it isn't so much the brutality, that's awful enough in itself of course, but it's a masterpiece in showing how random that brutality was. I think it's an instinctive reaction everyone has when faced with awful things and placing yourself there that somehow you would get out of it- human psychology I guess- but they pretty systematically show the person trying to bribe, or who is a genius in this or that, or has this or that talent, or anything else you can think of doesn't matter and didn't matter for millions of people.

I don't know if that makes any sense- I don't even know if I imagine myself or just empathize with the people they show type thing.

Anyway, the women's train just pulled up to Auschwitz and I am so fucking glad that I know how this scene ends unlike the first time I watched it at least.

[Swift]

The scene at the end where he lamenting about what he didn't do (if I hadn't bought this pin I could have saved another person) brings me to tears (as does a lot of the scenes). And then to end with the real Schindler's Jews...

Here are the two clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIp_8RNNX4k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jri0U57iWWM

We all need a good cry now and then... it cleans the soul.

[Cyborg Girl]

This is going to sound weird, me being Jewish, but I've meticulously avoided studying the Holocaust in any depth and will probably continue to do so. A lot of people would consider that incredibly shameful, forgetting history, etc. But I just don't feel that I can learn anything by immersing myself in past generations' suffering.

(If I'm going to immerse myself in anyone's suffering, it might as well be the ongoing suffering that I could at least theoretically do something about.)

Also I just don't like the... attitude that goes along with the study of it. There is a certain patronizing outlook - it's hard to explain, but it drives me bonkers. The idea, I guess, that if I'm not intimately connected with this suffering, that's something shameful that I deserve to be chastised for. There is a lot of chastising involved, and I do not like being chastised and shamed, and told to sit down and shut up.

Like I said, it's hard to explain.

[Cyborg Girl]

I think what's so fucking draining about it isn't so much the brutality, that's awful enough in itself of course, but it's a masterpiece in showing how random that brutality was. I think it's an instinctive reaction everyone has when faced with awful things and placing yourself there that somehow you would get out of it- human psychology I guess- but they pretty systematically show the person trying to bribe, or who is a genius in this or that, or has this or that talent, or anything else you can think of doesn't matter and didn't matter for millions of people.

I don't know if that makes any sense- I don't even know if I imagine myself or just empathize with the people they show type thing.

Anyway, the women's train just pulled up to Auschwitz and I am so fucking glad that I know how this scene ends unlike the first time I watched it at least.

Actually that makes perfect sense. I've personally met people who have made the claim that no human being is ever truly helpless... Which needless to say is total bullshit. It's a way of escaping how awful the world can be.

c.f. also a lot of attitudes toward violent crime. "Oh, if she had a gun..." or "If she had some martial arts training..." But no - there was nothing she could have done. Nothing. Nothing at all.

When I think about it, this is probably why I have such a crazy hate-on against serial killers and sexual predators. Those who dare to take away all of another person's choices, to make them truly helpless, deserve to be made utterly helpless themselves. It makes me a hypocrite, but I can't bring myself to be a pacifist. I feel that when the individual is helpless, society should step in - with violent force if necessary.

The horrifying thing about the Holocaust in that case is that it was perpetrated in part by ordinary citizens, who just happened to have some really sick ideas. IOW, people who could have been any of us. That IMO is what we can learn from it: not that we're really helpless and should pity ourselves and see ourselves as perpetual victims, but that we should watch our own motivations so that we don't victimize other people.

If we can't avoid being victims, we can at least avoid being perpetrators.

... I hope I'm making sense. I don't know, it's late and I'm tired.

[FZR1KG]

Brilliant and yet sickening movie.
Just makes me want to inflict much violence against the Nazi's watching it.
Particularly the scene with the rifle when he tries to forgive but can't bring himself to do it.

[Rommie]

GJ, for what it's worth, one of the places I still really want to visit in Europe is Krakow, yet one of the reasons I haven't is because it's near Auschwitz and I just really don't know if I can handle visiting it. I've literally pondered this for years- on the one hand you ought to and I don't think it's a place people actually enjoy visiting, but on the other I just really don't know if I could really do it. And like it or not these sites do have a certain amount of judgement attached to them if you don't go to them- "you haven't been to the Anne Frank house?!" was a pretty constant refrain I heard from people when I lived two blocks down but hadn't visited yet (mainly because the line's always so friggin' long, finally did visit one winter night).

But anyway, I remember in 8th grade we did go to a program where they brought in schoolchildren from all over the city of Pittsburgh to hear Holocaust survivors tell their stories. They were, of course, white haired and many had grandchildren, and I remember thinking at the time how strange it was to be in the last generation that would know people who lived through the Holocaust (or even WW2 for that matter, like my grandparents did) and telling my kids and grandkids someday about it. I guess you could argue that about anything in history but WW2 always seemed different to me- sorta like this pinnacle of human awfulness after which everyone collectively decided to step back from the barbarism (of course we also now live in the post-atomic world so as they say, after WW3 happens WW4 would be fought with sticks and stones). 20% of Polish people lost their lives in it- the mind boggles.

Also, I do not recommend watching Schindler's List in the evening if only because you don't get much sleep that night.

[Thumper]

Also, I do not recommend watching Schindler's List in the evening if only because you don't get much sleep that night.

That, I remember.

[Cyborg Girl]

@Rommie: I probably wouldn't get so easily ticked off about this stuff if the world had pulled back a bit from barbarism. As it is though, incredible numbers of people are still being systematically murdered.

In any case, yeah, the judgment is part of what I'm getting at. "You haven't made a hobby of studying the Holocaust? Oh, you should be ashamed."

[code monkey]

i feel that as thinking, caring people we have an obligation to bear witness. to know the history and to make sure that our children know it. to know the danger of blindly obeying authority. remember the experiments in which people were badgered into giving what they thought were very painful electric shocks to others? beyond that there is no obligation to see every holocaust-related film or exhibit. one may belong to one of the targeted groups or have grown up with survivors. no oligation beyond being aware.

[Swift]

This is going to sound weird, me being Jewish, but I've meticulously avoided studying the Holocaust in any depth and will probably continue to do so. A lot of people would consider that incredibly shameful, forgetting history, etc. But I just don't feel that I can learn anything by immersing myself in past generations' suffering.

There is a lot of space between ignoring or ignorance and studying in depth. A working knowledge would seem to me to be a good thing.

The horrifying thing about the Holocaust in that case is that it was perpetrated in part by ordinary citizens, who just happened to have some really sick ideas. IOW, people who could have been any of us. That IMO is what we can learn from it:

Yes. And not even ordinary citizens with sick ideas; just ordinary citizens. We forget too easily how we can get caught up in such things.

As CM it is probably the most important leason of the Holocaust.

By the way, least we forget, genocide is entirely too common and continues to happen
Here is a wikipedia table of genocides

And don't forget that the Holocaust was not just about Jews

With around 6 million Jews murdered as well as the genocide of the Romani: most estimates of Romani deaths are in the 200,000–500,000 range but some estimate more than a million.[4] A broader definition includes political and religious dissenters, 200,000 people with disabilities,[5] 2 to 3 million Soviet POWs, 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, 15,000 homosexuals and small numbers of mixed-race children (known as the Rhineland bastards), and millions of Polish and Soviet civilians, bringing the death toll to around 17 million.

[Morrolan]

having grown up just after WW2 with two parents who went through German occupation, seeing their Jewish friends deported, and, in the case of my father, being deported himself doing forced labour and living through and surviving the Dresden fire bombing i have been brought up hearing about and learning about the Holocaust and everything surrounding it, almost on a daily basis.

over 20 years ago i was diagnosed with being what they call a second generation war victim. needless to say Schindler's List isn't very high on my list of movies to watch...

[FZR1KG]

Apart from that crazy smirk you came out just fine. lol

[Morrolan]

Apart from that crazy smirk you came out just fine. lol

that and my collection of dead jellyfish.

[geonuc]

Did anyone know that the term falcon only applies to the female?

[FZR1KG]

Did anyone know that the term falcon only applies to the female?

Nope. I thought it was describing a species. Are you sure?
Perigrine Falcon is a species as far as I know.

[geonuc]

Yep. The male is called a tercel, or tiercel.

[FZR1KG]

Interesting. Learn something everyday.

[SciFi Chick]

Does this mean only the females get trained, or do we just call them all falcons incorrectly?