The first link is about China. Do they use the same vaccination schedule as we do? Do they use the same vaccine? How good is their record-keeping? Were there 1000 randomly sampled people from all over China, or from one specific place in the province?

They furthermore only mention that that one province has the mandatory vaccinations. Do the others? Are there a lot of unvaccinated people coming through the area that could disrupt the herd immunity effect? Like, say, a few tens of unvaccinated people at Disney?

The second link is someone trying to sell a DVD. There is absolutely no information there, just claims that have been refuted to the end of the universe and back. And some fearmongery correlation/causation conflation. Did you know that the Internet was getting built up at the same time as the skyrocketing Autism rate? I bet the Internet causes autism.

Third link: It is entirely believable that RIGHT NOW the measles vaccine causes more complications than the measles does. Because there are only a couple hundred cases of the measles in the US per year. It is all but eradicated, because of the vaccine, which means that it kills very few people.

If you go back before the vaccine, though, around 500,000 people had the measles a year (and this is probably a low guess, per the link). Around 20% of those had to be hospitalized. About four times more people died from it than now have fatal complications due to the vaccine.

No vaccine: (Possibly much) more than 500,000 people sick. 100,000 people hospitalized. 1,000-10,000 brain damaged. A few hundred dead (not a super fatal disease). Thousands more get liver damage, hearing damage, eye damage, other complications.

Vaccine: Assuming we're at a 90% vaccination rate, around 3,500,000 kids vaccinated a year. ~100 dead, per your link. 1000 with dangerously high fever. Deafness/seizure/brain-damage: So rare that a link to the vaccine can not be established. Autism: Completely fabricated and discredited.

This has a good chart comparing the relative danger, for equal numbers infected/vaccinated. If we stopped vaccinating, it would not take long to get back to where dealing with the measles was a dangerous rite of passage for almost every kid.

I won't go as far as gorillaman, and say you're being paranoid and oversensitive...that's not really for me to decide. But I will say that from what I'm hearing you say, it seems more of a "pet peeve" than something that actually is going to make a difference to anyone else. I can relate to that...I have a number of those myself (many related to the English language, like irregardless, and alot).

But he does have a good point about the way they use the term "men" being in reference to a rite of passage, and I have indeed heard similar statements from women (well girls, technically...too immature to be called women).

I don't agree with him about feminism in general...I do think there are many gender-related issues still worthy of support. I just don't find this to be one of them, even after having given it a fair amount of thought and debate over the years. Girl, boy, kid...there are many different uses for those words, and I do use them pretty evenly. Well, kids probably gets a bit more use, because it covers multi-gendered groups of people < 40 years old. >> ^bareboards2:

Sorry my response was so pissy..... I am just frustrated that after forty years of talking about this, I am still hearing the EXACT SAME RESPONSES from folks who don't take the time to actually think about the topic. It all just parroted back, the same old same old.
I sound like a broken record because I hear a broken record. For forty years.
Anyway, had you gone back and listened to the beginning of the clip where they call themselves "real men" or something like that, my comment might have made more sense. Can you imagine three young women saying "if I do this amazing act of bravery, then I'll prove myself as a real woman"? We just don't talk like that in our culture. And that makes me sad. And had done for FORTY YEARS.
If it is still going in ten years, I shall be even more sad.
>> ^bareboards2:
You are off by decades....
You boys are so touchy. I just made a suggestion that you think about something in a different way and your panties are all in a bunch.
It wouldn't hurt to think a new thought. Just lie back and relax. You might enjoy it.
>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^bareboards2:
For folks out there who call women "girls", please note the use of the word "men" in the beginning of this vid, and store it away for the future.

What use of "men"? I can't take watching it again...
I assume it was one of them, referring to the three of them? Worrying about that is like worrying about whether the pug down the street calls himself a puppy or a dog. Utterly pointless and irrelevant.
As far as I'm concerned, the terms "girls" or "boys" are totally appropriate for my friends that are my age or younger (which doesn't rule out too many of my friends any more at 50+), or when used in informal conversations. I'd be unlikely to use it in a speech I was giving, but in day-to-day life, talking about a boys' night out, or girls' night out...well, I can't see why it matters.
BB2, I generally agree with you, but this particular issue carries distinct hints of college-age-rabid-feminist. My advice would be to pick fights that are worth fighting. Revisit this one to see if it still seems important in a decade or so...I suspect it won't.

>> ^bareboards2:

Sorry my response was so pissy..... I am just frustrated that after forty years of talking about this, I am still hearing the EXACT SAME RESPONSES from folks who don't take the time to actually think about the topic. It all just parroted back, the same old same old.
I sound like a broken record because I hear a broken record. For forty years.
Anyway, had you gone back and listened to the beginning of the clip where they call themselves "real men" or something like that, my comment might have made more sense. Can you imagine three young women saying "if I do this amazing act of bravery, then I'll prove myself as a real woman"? We just don't talk like that in our culture. And that makes me sad. And had done for FORTY YEARS.
If it is still going in ten years, I shall be even more sad.


I have some exciting new thoughts for you to try out, but let's start with the mundane specific case of the gentlemen in the video. It seems obvious that they're contrasting 'men' with 'boys' rather than 'men' with 'women/girls'. That's the old rite of passage being invoked, nothing to do with sex at all. Being British, they also can't help talking with a certain degree of irony that some might miss. These points are only worth making because they highlight your paranoia and oversensitivity.

Sex is ultimately irrelevant; at a 50/50 split it's too shallow a distinction to be meaningful in most cases. Gender is a personal construct, which scarcely signifies outside the individual who inhabits it. If someone, for whatever reason incomprehensible to us, chooses to incorporate their ability to tolerate capsaicin into their gender identity then it's really none of our business. We've certainly no cause to be threatened by it on a personal or cultural level.

I don't consider myself to have a gender. The rational thing to do is treat people as individuals. When you talk about the cultural implications of calling someone a girl, that means as much to me as a teenagers complaining about discrimination against vampires.

It's possible to think very seriously about a topic and decide it doesn't matter. It's just as important to point out what doesn't matter as what does. Then we can stop wasting our energy, forty years worth in your case, on trifles - and concentrate on what's actually worth thinking about. Feminists seem to only think about things that don't matter, which is why everyone hates them. Every human being on earth, and I mean that literally, agrees that the various sexes and genders don't need to be assigned different rights, or at least that we're not sophisticated enough to be able to tease out and codify the very subtle differences between those groups, individuals, and any individual at different moments in their life. That's where the issue ends. There is nothing else to talk about, but when you've squandered so much time on and identified yourself so strongly with such a simple little idea you have to invent a lot of nonsense non-issues to rant on about just to make it all seem worthwhile.

Stop being a feminist; start being a rational person who naturally agrees with the single sensible point feminists have to make and go and do something useful with your time.

^Thanks, @ChaosEngine, for having an open and inquiring mind. I do appreciate it.

Now the question is -- does language shape our thinking? "What if" women were always called women in circumstances similar to when men are always called men? (Context, context, yes?)

I remember where I was the first time I called myself a "woman." It was forty years ago, and I remember everything about that moment. It felt weird as heck. A responsibility was being assumed by me, it felt like. It was my nineteenth birthday, and I was lounging poolside at a UCLA frat house in the middle of the day.

In traditional societies, there were rites of passage, weren't there? Often brutal, but still. A marking of the transition from childhood to adulthood. The closest thing I have to that in my conscious life is that moment I chose to call myself a woman for the first time.

Do you remember the first time you called yourself a man, assuming that mantle of responsibility?

I suspect it is different for men, because the word is used so much sooner for you guys. "Look at the little man!" when you are three years old. I never heard "look at the little woman." Still, that moment of truly being called a man -- or choosing that word for yourself -- does it resonate?

Thanks for taking this seriously, chaos.

And I still would be interested in your wife's take on this. She married well, I can tell. You rock.

Thank you greatly!

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
*promote

They finally finished part two : http://videosift.com/video/Burning-Man-Rites-Of-Passage-Night

Thank you!

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
*doublepromote

Is that the right video?


In reply to this comment by geo321:
I thought you might like... This is one of a two part, day and night.

Burning Man: Rites Of Passage - Day .. . http://vimeo.com/10433670

I thought you might like... This is one of a two part, day and night.

Burning Man: Rites Of Passage - Day .. . http://vimeo.com/10433670

My mom used to put soap in my mouth for saying dirty things ("Ralph went bliiiiiiind"). Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) that happened a lot. One day I smartened up and acted excited to get the soap. That freaked her the fuck out so she used hot sauce. I love hot sauce to this day.

Wasabi is a part of Japanese food/culture. I'm pretty sure this kid will be eating it regularly by toddler age. For all we know, doing this diluted mixture of wasabi is a rite-of-passage for babies.

Scientists need to do that thing where they hook your brain and show video from your minds eye...then you need to think of this story and record it.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
In '99 my graduating class came out to LA for a week to hold bullshit industry meetings and screenings. Not important. One night we decided to hire the kind of strippers that come to your hotel room. Imagine a class of about 30 or so people sitting in a suite while two chicks, one black and one white, danced for us. Mostly they wanted our money so they held these dumb games - one of them being you pay twenty to eat a Twizzler from their vagina. True story.

So I have this really good friend. We'll call him Giant. Giant was a great guy. The best. To this day I keep in touch with him. Sweet guy, but maybe not the most "experienced", if you get me. But a super awesome dude, just not the kind of dude that's comfortable around strippers. This is key to consider.

So then I had a Twizzler. So did a number of people. It was a rite of passage in a way. But then we all paid for Giant to have his turn. He was apprehensive, but it didn't take much convincing and he laid on his back and awaited his prize. The black chick was hot, and way hotter than the white girl. So lucky him when she straddled his face with the Twizzler embedded so deep only an inch was exposed. She dipped it around his lips, pulling back before getting too close to his open mouth.

All of us clapped and cheered. This seemed to excite and almost inspire her, so instead of letting Giant snatch it in his teeth, she seemed to bait him like how you'd excite your dog with a piece of bacon hanging over his nose. Anyhow, the white chick heard the crowd'd excitement and wanted to get into what the black chick was doing, and so she started unbuckling Giant's belt, and while she pulled it from the loops, he started panicking. Not the serious hyperventilating kind. No. But the "Shit this is embarrassing" kind.

He starts really going for it. Snapping at that small piece of Twizzler just sticking out, but for some reason he just can't quite reach it. True story. So then the girl gets his belt off, and then gives him a gaspedal. That's when someone steps on your junk. Or so that's what someone told me it was called. Anyhow, she steps on his danglies and he freaks the fuck out, snaps the Twizzler like a goddamned ninja from the other girl's vagina, and takes off running back to his seat. All in a blink of the eye. But without his belt, his khakis come down. Exposing his tightie-whities. Yes, it was 1999 and those where tightie-whities.

But the girl behind him, the one who stole his belt, started whipping his ass as he ran away. So. Imagine this, a Twizzler in his lips, he's running away with his pants around his ankles in front of almost the entire class and the girl behind him is chasing him and spanking him in the ass with his own belt. Everyone erupts in this kind of half-laugh/half-scream. And that's when I think about the Twizzler I ate just a couple moments ago, and it was then I asked myself, "What did that taste like?"

"It tasted like what I imagined AIDS tasting like."

In '99 my graduating class came out to LA for a week to hold bullshit industry meetings and screenings. Not important. One night we decided to hire the kind of strippers that come to your hotel room. Imagine a class of about 30 or so people sitting in a suite while two chicks, one black and one white, danced for us. Mostly they wanted our money so they held these dumb games - one of them being you pay twenty to eat a Twizzler from their vagina. True story.

So I have this really good friend. We'll call him Giant. Giant was a great guy. The best. To this day I keep in touch with him. Sweet guy, but maybe not the most "experienced", if you get me. But a super awesome dude, just not the kind of dude that's comfortable around strippers. This is key to consider.

So then I had a Twizzler. So did a number of people. It was a rite of passage in a way. But then we all paid for Giant to have his turn. He was apprehensive, but it didn't take much convincing and he laid on his back and awaited his prize. The black chick was hot, and way hotter than the white girl. So lucky him when she straddled his face with the Twizzler embedded so deep only an inch was exposed. She dipped it around his lips, pulling back before getting too close to his open mouth.

All of us clapped and cheered. This seemed to excite and almost inspire her, so instead of letting Giant snatch it in his teeth, she seemed to bait him like how you'd excite your dog with a piece of bacon hanging over his nose. Anyhow, the white chick heard the crowd'd excitement and wanted to get into what the black chick was doing, and so she started unbuckling Giant's belt, and while she pulled it from the loops, he started panicking. Not the serious hyperventilating kind. No. But the "Shit this is embarrassing" kind.

He starts really going for it. Snapping at that small piece of Twizzler just sticking out, but for some reason he just can't quite reach it. True story. So then the girl gets his belt off, and then gives him a gaspedal. That's when someone steps on your junk. Or so that's what someone told me it was called. Anyhow, she steps on his danglies and he freaks the fuck out, snaps the Twizzler like a goddamned ninja from the other girl's vagina, and takes off running back to his seat. All in a blink of the eye. But without his belt, his khakis come down. Exposing his tightie-whities. Yes, it was 1999 and those where tightie-whities.

But the girl behind him, the one who stole his belt, started whipping his ass as he ran away. So. Imagine this, a Twizzler in his lips, he's running away with his pants around his ankles in front of almost the entire class and the girl behind him is chasing him and spanking him in the ass with his own belt. Everyone erupts in this kind of half-laugh/half-scream. And that's when I think about the Twizzler I ate just a couple moments ago, and it was then I asked myself, "What did that taste like?"

"It tasted like what I imagined AIDS tasting like."

Don't let it get you down.

Posting dupes is sort of like...hmmmmm.....

Suddenly I can't remember.

A rite of passage?

Keep posting....

Cheers.

In reply to this comment by tedbater:
I give up...

This is a dupe: *dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Motivational-Speaker-has-made-a-Believer-out-of-Me

>> ^Stormsinger:
The more I've learned about the Amish, the more impressed I am. They are the only religious group I know of to do this -- encourage their kids to experience life outside of the community before committing to live by the rules of the church.


That part is impressive but not so much when you factor in the rapes and child abuse.

Yea but the amount of time you spend bitching about it, you seem like a prison fish. Pucker up sweetie.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
It's my second time being hobbled. How many have you been in for? One? Pffft. You don't grow hair on your testicles until you're hobbled at least twice.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
Pfff being hobbled is a rite of passage. Suck it up and join the men of the community.


...and issykitty