h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When I was a kid my mum (and my cousins' mums) would say "Go outside will you? The sun's cracking the flags" on particularly fine days during the summer (translation: the currant bun is so strong it's heating up the stone paving slabs to the point where they're fracturing).

That's probably not something parents say to their kids so much these days, what with the world so apparently full of paedophiles, crackheads and gangs, if indeed the kids even want to go out and can tear themselves away from their video game console or smartphone. Plus, cracking the flags in Texas is of a different order of magnitude to cracking the flags in the UK. I'm quite happy to stay indoors from June to September (inclusive).

This post has been removed.

Oh how very quaint http://www.today.com/video/today/48394063#48394063 And not entirely correct - I don't ever recall hearing it being used to mean heavy rain. I could imagine it being used for hail though.

Kudos to them for providing a transcript for the video, anyway - I wish people always did that.

NPR does that too, for their main morning and evening news programmes, Morning Edition and All Things Considered. More power to 'em.

I couldn't see the transcript? However I have been accused of breaking the house rules for a JOKE. How could anyone believe I really wanted to kill children??? This site is beyond a joke. I'm sorry Gosho. I came back for you, but I can't stay.

That's sad

I don't remember anything about kids in the post, but that's just my declining memory. Can anyone remind me?

I saw it, and it was so obvious from context that it was a facetious statement that no one should have objected.

I remember when growing up, all the comedians of the time made "jokes" about different people.

You see them now and they're racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. The thing with jokes, is that they're not always funny, especially when they are someone else's expense.

The posting broke the House Rules, whether that's in context or not, we have the rules for a reason.

Oh, and someone did object. Several someones actually, it had multiple yikes', which were then upheld.

I still don't recall what the comment was, but it seems to be the way of the world now that the few complainers usually get their way, rather than the majority of people who didn't bat an eyelid, and it's rare for anyone to stand up to them and say 'Actually, we think you're wrong. You're seeing it out of context'. The complainers get their way a disproportionately large number of times, and in doing so they subtly shape how things are done and how the world goes along.

But that's the problem - you never know how many people *didn't* complain about something. Although in the case of a website, I suppose it's possible to look at logs of unique page views and tally those against the number of complaints.

Sometimes a handful of people will complain about the complaint and resulting decision in a 'political correctness gone mad' sort of way; once in a while someone will write a good piece about it and we'll say 'Yep, that's spot on the money'. But it still goes on.

I've recently been working my way through every series of The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club (affiliated). It was a different time back then, wasn't it. Some of those jokes and comments really are beyond the pale, not just as a matter of someone's opinion, but really. I don't like the words 'shocking' or 'shocked'. They're over-used these days and have lost a lot of their meaning. I wrote a journal entry about it, I think. But I was taken aback when I heard Marti Caine tell a certain joke about Chinese and Pakistanis. I expect that from Bernard Manning, even Charlie White, but I don't ever recall hearing a woman tell that sort of joke. It did shock me a little.

But I think there are few people here who haven't, at one time or another, gone at seeing a story about something being stopped, removed, taken away, because someone complained (and I have a lot of sympathy for organisations who are scared of lawsuits from people who sue at the drop of a hat and judges who don't throw such cases out of court). I honestly think that too many people are too sensitive, and the rest of us need to stand up to them.

I know what you mean Baron, and in general I agree with you. There's that lovely quote from Stephen Fry about people being offended.

The yikes system here though, as I'm sure you're aware, merely highlights a posting to bring it to the moderators attention. They then discuss and decide if it breaks the House Rules.
If it doesn't, nothing else happens (as far as people using the site see), but if it does break the House Rules, then it gets removed.

This broke the House Rules.

That was Gosho, I was biting my tongue as it seems pointless these days to argue.


And while I do love that quote by Stephen Fry, the one I've been thinking of is in the beginning of this one from Salman Rushdie.

>>>>>>
“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read.

If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.

I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it.

To read a 600-page novel and then say that it has deeply offended you: well, you have done a lot of work to be offended.”


- Salman Rushdie
<<<<<<


By the way, as I recall the house rules (and they may have been rewritten since I've read them) there was some mention that if a post breaks the rules in some way that there might be some option of rewording the post, but that doesn't actually happen. Once a post is removed, that seems to be it. I assume that thing I read was written before the original site was finished and there wasn't built in a readily available system for submitting edited posts. That's a shame really. I think often questionable posts could simply be restated and the conversation could resume without the ugly [REMOVED] post derailing the conversation.

Sorry Baron, I need to read names on postings more clearly

I don't think I know the Stephen Fry quote. Can you enlighten me?

The Salman Rushdie quote seems to be largely in line with what Philip Pullman said:

"It was a shocking [there's that word again] thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That’s all I have to say on that subject."

I don't like unfettered free speech because I'm of the opinion that with great freedom comes great responsibility, and too many people either can't or won't accept that responsibility. Not only that, people will twist the idea of freedom in perverse ways, and judges (I'm looking at you, Supreme Court of the United States of America) will sometimes agree with them.

It's always a balancing act, and I think most democratic societies have it broadly right. People can express their opinions up to the point where that opinion might, in any reasonable person's judgement, cause other people to break the law or harm another person. There's always going to be some contention about that, but I think we all know what's being talked about here - racism, sexism, homophobia etc.

And I think it's also often forgotten that 'freedom of speech and thought', at its most basic level, means the freedom to think and say what you want without your government and its agencies banging you up in the jug, or worse. Freedom of speech is really freedom from the excesses and corruption of the powerful.

And in the interests of balance - F77636?thread=645787&post=7085272#p7085272

A lovely post from the archives there

I have it bookmarked for occasions such as this

Stephen Fry on Offence: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706825-it-s-now-very-common-to-hear-people-say-i-m-rather

And here it is with just a bit of context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-IX69mjpcA