From: rjc@powermail.com (Ray)
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 94 12:18:59 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Come on
In-Reply-To: <199407211831.OAA01033@umbc9.umbc.edu>
Message-ID: <199407211914.PAA00189@powermail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Lefty:
> >>    Anyway, I'm surprised that there isn't a feminist witch-hunt
> >> investigating Samdy Sandfort, for his non-pc H.E.A.T. reports.
> >
> >Yikes, Ray, let's not give anybody ideas!  In reality, though, I think the 
> >perceptive women on this list know my heart is in the right place.  Isn't 
> >it clear to everyone what I'm making fun of?
> 
> Heh.
> 
> It's not clear to Ray.

  Well, I can certainly say that I am impressed that you've progressed
to telepathy, but humor a poor student for once. Could it be that
H.E.A.T. is a low budget campy syndicated show with bad writing whose
only "redeeming" (gimmick) feature is the hunky guys and bodacious babes which
appear on it? Like 9 million similar shows on USA up-all-night.  I'm a
fan of the genre myself, only instead of H.E.A.T., I watch "Thunder in
Paradise" which has Hulk Hogan, a wonder speedboat, and Carol Alt in
it. You can't beat the ridiculous plots, impossible boat technology
(artificial intelligence, rocket powered *in water* at speeds that
would easily tear it apart, and cheesy morphing effects), and the way
Carol Alt seems to fall into the hands of the bad guy every week. (the
bad guy usually has a harem of women, or amazons from American
Gladiators).

   Sandy may think that the women "know his heart is in the right
place", but that is a dangerous assumption to make, especially in a
professional setting where you aren't judgement proof. Let me tell you
what happened to my brother-in-law 2 weeks ago. He had just gotten
back from vacation in the Bahamas with my sister and was eager to show
his buddies at work(United Airlines) the pictures he had taken on the
beach. It just so happened that this beach had plenty beautiful women
in bikini's on it and he had taken many pictures of them. His buddies
made a few comments like "check out that one", "that one's a babe", etc.
One of the female coworkers overheard and filed sexual harrassment
charges. (she thought the pictures were pornographic, she hadn't seem
them).  He was punished and given a list of words and phrases you
can't say around the office, including stuff like, "you look different,
did you change something?" and "your hair looks nice today." The
point being, it doesn't matter what your intentions are, or if you
meant no harm by a comment, one sexist comment or mention of a woman's
body part, and in many workplaces, you could be in hot water.

 The key phrase is "perceptive women". There will always be one twit,
or group of twits, waiting to pounce on you. After experiencing
speech codes and feminist wackos on the U of MD campus, I'm not
going to underestimate the power of twits any more.

  Sandy's pretty safe making comments on this list because of the 
make up of the list (mostly male, many libertarian, many anti-pc, etc)
just as Tim May was safe making plenty of politically controversial
statements on Extropians. Try making those kinds of statements in a
more politically diverse forum. (and indeed, I believe Tim did 
eventually catch fire in the netcom newsgroups where someone mistook
one of his comments against welfare as bigotry)

  I hope I "got it"