A new spirit in the CAFE?

Parent Cafe
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<p>After practically giving up on the Cafe over the flame wars on political issues, I find the new series of threads on favorite inventions, things we’re glad we no longer do and so forth to be sooo refreshing.</p>

<p>Thanks to you folks that got the movement going. Perhaps we can all use it as an opportunity to practice a bit of civility. I do find it interesting how no flame wars have erupted among those posts, though. All the more amazing when you consider the flame war that did erupt in digmedia’s “Just say NO to temptation; Take the pledge…” thread.</p>

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<p>HEY!!! Welcome back to the Cafe newmassdad! Just hang out here with the ones of us who also like to avoid the fray! :wink: ~berurah</p>

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<p>See, I think threads are self-selecting. If you want to talk about socks, sheets, old rock songs, baking, you name it–you can find it here, and that’s a good thing. If you want to argue about politics, you can do that, too. And if you don’t want to argue, or talk about laundry or cooking, you can just skip those threads. And if you want to be passive-aggressive, you can start threads about how civil you are for posting about leafblowers and can-openers instead of politics.</p>

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<p>nmd, dig’s thread was a meta-thread about avoiding the political threads so it’s not too surprising to me that the claws came out there also.</p>

<p>Y’all ought to drop by Sinner’s Alley sometime, the congenial spirit never left there: the Funny Faerie has been throwing confetti recently.</p>

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gettin’ the fire extinguisher… brb…</p>

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<p>Just callin’ it like I see it. No flame, just fact.</p>

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Your “fact” is spittin’ sparks…</p>

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<p>I think that criticizing those who like to engage in full contact sports such as political polemics makes about as much sense as criticizing those who want to talk about “things we’re glad we no longer do and so forth.” If you want to talk about it, go for it. If you don’t, don’t. A very smart poster said this:

I couldn’t agree more.</p>

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<p>Just doodling….</p>

<p>The politics of posting:</p>

<p>-1. The poster who prefers their world and their reflection in it</p>

<p>–even as it is–but is open, even anticipating improvement and remedy while enjoying the benefits such as they are–which they often have in surplus–of our political/cultural traditions and the progress so engender in themselves and the world they’ve been located in (think Leibniz, ‘best of all possible worlds’). They are often defensive of it, even if joyously so.</p>

<p>-2. The poster who, longing for equality and ‘social justice’ is appalled with their world as currently convened,</p>

<p>looks into the mirror of life disgruntled and distempered, and in such displeasure cries out for deliverance, if not revolutionary change in general and in particular, with the clarion call, ‘look at me, look at my world, this ruinous world…of mine (think ‘secular-puritans’…in earnest). They are often aggressive and angry, even if inspired and affable.</p>

<p>-3. The poster, who, though empathetic to category #2–in principal–is living a version of the bourgeoisie dream </p>

<p>and is, in this sense, aligned with those in category #1, while finding those who speak loudly or at all a disturbance to be avoided in such social occasions as they find themselves…they tend towards the quaint and whimsical and would prefer to agree to disagree so as to attend to the regularly scheduled programming (think ‘late Victorian-libertine’ or, apropos the 21st century, Oprah). They tend to be a majority and throw their moral weight around appropriately (though they would shrink away from the term “moral”).</p>

<p>BTW, I fancy myself in 1, fascinated by those in 2, while deeply sympathetic to those in 3.</p>

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<p>(think Leibniz, ‘best of all possible worlds’) </p>

<p>Looking for my copy of Candide</p>

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<p>The thing about CC is, you can just order from the menu. Don’t like incendiary topics? It’s ridiculously easy - just don’t go to the thread. There’s way too much content here for anyone to read all of it (and if someone can and does, they’re probably having serious life issues), so, everyone can read and participate in what they want, and ignore what they don’t.</p>

<p>There’s all sorts of stuff here that is of zero interest or use to me - example, there’s a stubbornly surviving thread on commodities to use to help one get “clean” after using the bathroom. Useless thread, that, - bizarre, actually, but, hey, there are other people who like it, enjoy, etc., and so if they like it, I love it. </p>

<p>Now, I cannot think of a single reason why anyone would want to post about bidets and related experiences, but, until and unless CC advises they’re running out of server space, I cannot see why it matters in the slightest what I think about how one should or should not clean up after urination and defectation (is that a word), or what anyone else thinks. Besides, you can learn SOME new, bizarre fact from just about any thread: for example, in one of the posts in the bidet thread, there’s a link, that once you visit it, you can learn that it’s perfectly safe and even beneficial to go to urinate in one’s own bath water. I’m not going to leverage that newfound bit of knowledge anytime soon, but, there you go. </p>

<p>We could actually use a few more political, cultural and world-event threads; I enjoy reading well-written, clear posts on opposing points of view and wish more people would contribute.</p>

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<p>and it seemed like such a benign little thread when it started… <em>sniff</em></p>

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<p>LOL baseballmom. Hear, hear.</p>

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<p>benign…</p>

<p>…up with people!</p>

<p>–think of it like this, here you don’t even have to turn the chanel, you simply don’t turn it on to begin with. :)</p>

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<p>I guess we can run, but we can’t hide. </p>

<p>Funny how some folks can argue about ANYTHING. </p>

<p>Time to reinvoke dig’s pledge…</p>

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<p>The “bidets” thread seems to be going strong…</p>

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<p>latetoschool - What is “bizarre” about making some people aware of a better way to be clean? What’s bizarre to me is shying away from discussing such a common, necessary, everyday function, and how to best complete it. </p>

<p>Frankly, I would rather discuss topics such as bidets, where one CAN change the world, than endless politics – where one cannot!</p>

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…well, it’s like Mike Tyson said in one of his more lucid moments:

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<p>d</p>

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<p>So, ya think Willie should start Pedro or sit him down for the series?</p>

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<p>The world can be changed by a toilet wanna be that offers mechanized sexual stimulation? </p>

<p>Does Osama-been-missing know this? - (unless he really died - hmmm, maybe that’s what finally got him).</p>