Phil Landmeier @shuttersparks@social.cleverlibre.org

@GrimmReality Hahaha. I *really* enjoyed your post. Hilarious but accurate.

The history of the Crusades is fascinating but I never understood them until I learned the original point of it, which was not covered in the histories I'd read up to that point.

What I learned was that around the time of the First Crusade, one of the big problems faced by The Church was an over-armed Europe. Every two-bit guy with a land-grant had a little army. There were thousands of these fiefdoms of all sizes. They all had "knights" and "warriors" who were often just thugs and criminals.

These guys were paid a stipend and fed, and had lots of spare time. In their spare time, they'd loot and rape the peasants. The outcry from the peasants to the Church was very loud and getting louder. The Church badly needed to do something and was looking for a solution. A Crusade was a perfect way to put all these thugs, I mean "knights", to work and get them the hell out of Europe. Give them something worthwhile to do.

@daliazygas Yes, there's an island not far from my home in Guatemala everyone calls "Bird Island". Same set of species you mention and thousands of them. I used to take a small boat or canoe and row up close, but not too close to the island at twilight.

Not too close because all the pooping sounded like rainfall. Hahaha. Get too close and you'll be sorry.

@Ferwen JEG beat me to it. Yes, this list is long, although you mentioned two my my favorite examples.

It's absolutely unfair and unjust what male-dominated society has done here. If I were Watson and Crick, I'd have felt like a heel for the rest of my life, ashamed unless I took every opportunity to point out Franklin's role. But that's me. Taking credit for other people's work is a low to which I will not go.

My revenge is imagining the hair-tearing and heated arguments that must have taken place when the Nobel Committee was faced with Marie Curie. Not once, but twice. I'd like to be a fly-on-the-wall for those discussions. It's a miracle none of those men had a heart attack.

At the same time I can see his point. "Understand" implies that the thing dominates you. In fact, when you fully comprehend something, you don't stand under it, you dominate it. To have full command (notice the word) of a topic, or issue, or skill. In Spanish the word dominate is used directly, "dominar". If you're an expert at something, you are said to dominate it. In English we say master. I've mastered (again, notice the word) welding, computer programming, engineering, pipe organ, etc. They didn't master me, I mastered them.

I think that's why the weirdness of saying UNDERstand bothers him and his cohort.

@rodti @Clementulus @freemo I might steal that. It goes along with proactive, etc.

@SDF Very cool. I know a guy who'd probably love to play with that. Back in the day he was a TOPS-10/20 guru.

@Clementulus @freemo Hah, it's fun to deconstruct the words we use. A friend of mine is Jamaican, a Rastafarian. He won't use the word "understand". It makes no sense. He says "overstand" instead.

@amydiehl It's going to take more generations to eventually eliminate patriarchy. It runs deep. Plenty of women still buy into it and teach their sons and daughters to believe in the natural authority of men.

I'm old. My mother was born in 1913 Europe, so old-school. I talked with her about these things around the 1970s. Her attitude was, "No, no. Women don't belong in positions of authority or leadership. They're too unstable. Men are much more reliable."

The irony is that she was one of the most rock steady, stable, determined, fearless people I've ever known. Hah.

These days I have arguments to counter hers and I wish I could have a chat with her again about it.

@jeridansky Yup, that's the fediverse for you. When Google+ was dying I got invitations from friends in the fediverse.

@tristansnell I'm glad I'm not McCarthy. Santos is a loose cannon that will likely create a big mess eventually. When this happens it will reflect badly on anyone who supported him.