Re: Well, I'll try again for both of us. - Edit 1
Before modification by Isaac at 04/02/2012 07:46:36 PM
I certainly don't want to be in a fight with you, especially not when the general thread was so civil (relatively).
I don't think we're in danger of having a fight, I commented, you misinterpreted me, I recognized that my comments could easily have been misinterpreted and that such a misinterpretation would merit the response if true. Me repeating that I think you should have given me the benefit of the doubt achieves nothing.
You never offended me until you referenced Canolli and compounded it with DA. I specifically referenced Joel hitting two people, but you call me out for not jumping on Canolli then essentially just now say you didn't need to respond to DA, and thus presumably neither did I, because Joel had responded to him, but Joel had also already responded to Canolli, and I assume my fairly obvious reference to him supporting Joel explicitly would qualify as stating my negative view of his post. So yes, there, you screwed up and have offended me.
This is down to my personality, and if you have problems with that, I can't do anything to help you. I don't reply to everything, especially not when I feel I can't make a positive point. Joel replied to both, and it was not my intention to get into a discussion on the ethics of abortion, as you have mentioned.
Didn't have problem with you not getting on them, I had a problem with you getting on me about not getting on them when you hadn't and Joel already had and I said I agreed with him.
I said that if you had a problem with a post, that is what you should reply to. I used Cannoli as the example, and was not claiming that he was the only issue in the thread. I apologize if it sounded that way or I didn't represent it correctly. I felt that you were scolding me and my thread, because that was what you responded to - I then responded directly to that response. I am sorry to have offended you if I was wrong about that, BUT I still think that some of the burden is on you - it simply doesn't make sense to sound as though you're taking the objectively higher moral ground while also refusing to reference who you're talking about (be it posters here or someone you know that works at KFC). Do you think I'm completely off base there? I don't, but from the discussion below, it seems I DID misconstrue some of what you were saying, and I appreciate the clarification.
I don't normally explain what I consider accepted knowledge, I'm pretty confident the super-majority of people who read 'pink bucket' understood the reference, I detailed it in the last post only to make sure you knew that I was using as a standard reference and not something from this thread. Everyone in this thread essentially claims by posting greater than average knowledge of SGK, except in the form of asking questions, and I doubt anyone would have felt attacked by me via my comments if they'd simply posted to ask for more information. As for DA and Canolli, I'm not going to legitimize their remarks by dragging either of us over the thresher. I routinely post critical non-specific posts into longer threads when I see multiple offenses, that is why I replied to your OP, as is the norm, plus the titular references, a news update that I think you'll agree was relevant and should have been sent as a direct reply to your OP. So off base? A little to be sure but I don't think you were unreasonable
This is further compunded because you repeat the claim that MOST of the points were on target, in spite of my having already said No, I've got no beef with your thread, and most posts were just fine, civil, and interesting enough for me to follow. Why are you still pounding that drum when I've already clarified that no such intent was there?
I was still "pounding that drum" because I also read when you said this: "this doesn't stop me from wanting to deliver a few appropriate slaps where I believe they were due.
... and I did
You may disagree, and I'd prefer not to call them out by name, but I consider them appropriate. I also think
Note 'also'
people need the occasional reminder that, much like sneering at paparazzi while reading the tabloids, just because something pops up in the news doesn't mean it really entitles them -morally - to render judgments, legally of course they may, as may I upon them. You may or may not agree that this is such a case, and I do not claim it is an extreme example, but I do believe some in this thread also exceeded their moral authority to condone or condemn."
I was attempting to point out that if you have issues, it makes much more sense to address them than to make a general statement to me. Do you not see how I could have been confused about your intentions and whether I was one who deserved any moral slapping? Aside - I don't agree that people have less right to say something, moral authority deserved or otherwise. That may have to remain a point on which we agree to disagree.
When one is adding in a clearly relevant update on the article, replying to the OP is appropriate, it is also, as I said, pretty normal to reply to multiple unconnected comments with a general reply to the thread... to the thread, not really you at all. I mean I do it fairly regularly and so do others. I'd stated I didn't want in the thread, a single response was appropriate. Everything in it was appropriate to a non-specific singular reply to the OP. No slap was addressed at you, beyond the generalized slap at humanity for the way we let this stuff happen to good causes. I can certainly see how you felt that way, I don't think it was outrageous of you to feel that way, but I don't think on that score I hold much burden. Clarification requires lengthier posts, I've been trying to trim them back of late and that was especially desirable when the thread is one I don't want to get sucked into. More's the pity since it happened anyway.
As for moral authority, we will have to agree to disagree. I am certainly open to counter-evidence or logic that politicizing causes often taints them or that in general discussions of their policy in any sort of political light contributes to that. Once one is truly irredeemable political, as many are, then they're fair game. Whether or not SGK is may be debatable, but it doesn't stop me from using it as vivid example of the cost of all of this.
As to the rest, the thing bugging me that worries me about losing my temper is that you utterly misinterpret my OP, which really had virtually nothing to do with the people in the thread, something Joel and Ray both seem to have gotten just fine. I think, reviewing some things, that the 'pink bucket' must have come in there. So you know, the pink bucket commentary is in a lot of other articles on this and something that is a personal irritation because a younger relative with whom I enjoy drinking coffee and discussing matters works at KFC and it came up long before this thread or incident. So if that's part of the 'scolding' you refer to, it was at best peripherally related. Actually the only comment even aimed at the majority of posters in the thread was the 'salt' one.
Thank you for clarifying that. It was NOT clear to me that you weren't talking about posters and/or me specifically, and it may be that I'm not as sharp as joel or ray. 
They're just used to me, Danny also apparently.
I also could, were it appropriate, write out a massive laundry list of things I've seen, on the national stage or in my own charitable and political volunteer work, that justify my comments, but I thought the thrust fairly self-evident. Let me re-summarize though, beyond the news update, the jab you yourself have already said was deserved at certain persons, and a disclaimer about my own alignment and view, everything I said amounts to "I hate that good causes get hijacked, and am bitter about it because there really is no alternative, except for people to judge causes on their merits and not their spokespeople, which will never happen as long as we all continue to be accomplices to it."
Thank you for the summary. I don't disagree with that at all, except that I do think everyone is allowed an opinion and to talk about it.
They're allowed, I simply discourage it. Same reason I discourage rumor mongering or bickering. If it does not help, and it may harm, then I avoid speaking of it unless such is my intent. Fundamentally, you are all welcome to discuss this subject you consider important, but if that is okay, it surely must be equally okay for me to express my view that the conversation is itself fundamentally damaging the cause that I assume everyone here does consider important, and that in general this is a serious and widespread concern. Spit in a bucket, to be sure, but a lot of people are spitting right now on SGK or the vile babykillers or misogynists out to co-opt or destroy them. Look it all the wonders it did for the environmental movement, any number of holidays or festivals, every single red cross operation I can remember, and God alone knows how much else including various God-affiliated charities. Even civil talk, which I can not condemn, serves to this end, as people use that as an excuse to weigh in with their political views on the matter, and others reply in kind.
Whatever else you see in there, isn't there. And I regret that it was apparently seen to be there, but I feel more strongly after your previous post that you went in and saw what you expected.
I think I explained how that happened above (when I referenced your quote).
I'm quite happy with your explanations, it is water under the bridge form my perspective and I assume and hope yours as well.
I am fundamentally remarking on my opinion that this thread, by its very nature, good not avoid causing the very thing I am bitter about. And I standby that, because I simply can not see any reason Komen's actions should logically effect the funding of their cause. Yet I don't think many who were in this thread, no matter how civil, view it that way. I think that we collectively taint the process, every time we pay more attention to a commercial with a celeb endorsing something, or a heated political debate about it occurring. Yet this happening is, again, essentially inevitable, because we all do perk up our ears when a figure or group we like endorses as given cause, and because any cause which can get such endorsements and publicity would be fools and even negligent not to do so.
We can have a real discussion here, I think. I don't think this is just about a celebrity cause. Not this time. There are so many REAL women who rely on PP, and SGK is in a unique position to recognize that. What I found most eye-opening about the entire issue wasn't anything to do with the politics or the popularity of the conversation - it was that 1) there were people (even fairly high up) who threatened to quit SGK if it made such a change, and 2) there were branches of SGK that outright stated that they would maintain the link with PP anyway, given that there were rural, poor, Native American and etc women who were almost completely unreachable for breast cancer screenings w/o PP. That made an impression on me, though I can't speak for others. In the interest of honesty, I do think there was a massive amount of politics to it, both in the original decision and the latter changes.
I can't reply to those without being a hypocrite. Those who threatened to resign over it, in my opinion, have split loyalties and perhaps should consider their fitness for the duties they have volunteered for. Their motives, wisdom, and ethics are not a matter for me to speculate on, they're private citizens I've never met.
I can reply about PP in one respect though. They have often pushed the line about being the only option, to mollify those who object to abortion or the smaller group which objects to contraceptives. These claims have typically been false and misleading, easily disproved, but never widely reported. I wonder how many people think PP actually provides mammograms? Probably a lot after their president said they did. Lots of people do breast screenings, and many will be discontinue these because of the 2011 Cochrane review showing that this sort of screening has an absolute risk reduction of 0.05%, meaning that 2,000 such screenings must be performed to save a life. A worthy thing, but if it costs, say, $100 for each or 200,000 to save a life, these funds and efforts might be better directed at a route which saves 1 for every $100,000. Actually Cochrane indicated screenings were quite probably doing net harm, due to frequency, but that's another story, several really. Interestingly a search on Cochrane and Komen will provide as the first too hits the link to their own webpage compiling reference links on breast screening repeat citations of Cochrane, understandably so, and though now that this is so politicized by everyone jumping the gun, I doubt any could ever tell or care if just maybe, as I would assume, the breast cancer charity might have decided funds were better spent elsewhere after receiving well-respected research indicating that was so this last year. Certainly there are no articles mentioning it, but I prefer to do my own research where possible these days.
A quick quote from Brinker, "Wherever possible, we want to grant to the provider that is actually providing the lifesaving mammogram,". This, on the face at least, seems quite reasonable to me in light of that study. It is quite probable though that Cecile Richards, Pres of PP, was still under the impression her group provided mammograms when she denounced Brinker. Nobody seems concerned with the Cochrane review in the news, even though I remembered it and BC's not huge on my list, and
Like I said though, it is rather hard to avoid politics on this matter. I am no fan of PP, but I still believe that fundamentally it was for SGK to decide where to spend its donations. Perhaps this was all discussed already, I did not read every post and I've read so much on this in so many places of late that who said what gets lost on me. And I've already stepped close to hypocrisy just by saying as much as I did.
Reply or not, as you see fit, I am happy to let it go because I do not see myself as the clean unblemished figure here, but I resent that you seem to think you were, and even went so far as imply I was opposed to people's right to voice their opinion when I explicitly made it clear I was opposed to an assumption of a moral, not legal, right to speak out on some issues. It's not hard for me to see how you could read me wrong, but I don't like that you didn't extend me the benefit of the doubt and kept on even after I clarified myself.
If it helps, I don't ever see myself as a clean or unblemished figure, because I am very well aware that I don't understand everything, and can't always be in someone else's shoes. Obviously, I can't always avoid acting as though I do, however. Especially when I have mistaken someone's intent.
Like I said, water under the bridge.