On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 22:47:38 -0400, Lee S. Billings wrote (in message ):
Or buy a computer. I have never been talked down to more when buying computer components than at our local retail computer outlets. I was working with computers before those minimum wage chomokes were born. And I don't give a damn if the thing holds recipes!
Or have a car repaired. When I was a teen, all the boy I thought were hot were motorheads. Considering I was imprisoned in the gifted and talented wing at the high school, I guess that was my way of rebelling: find the shop class boys and shun the pocket protector boys. I learned a lot about cars, and can diagnose and repair my own vehicles fairly well. I _never_ get cheated at the repair shop. And they try to rip me off, every single time. (One guy tried to sell me a "band tightening" transmission tune up for the Bug. Nice Try. The Bug has a manual transmission that doesn't have bands: it has gears)
Or buy health or life insurance for your family: I've managed our medical benefits and such forever. The policy is in MY name, DH is merely a secondary cardholder. Does that keep hospitals and doctor's offices from submitting claims under his name? No siree. The problem is greatly magnified because I have a different last name from the rest of the family.
Gender bias is alive and well. I thank God for my foremothers, who have accomplished so much and made us realize that we are fully human and equal to men. And I hope that the future will be easier for my daughters, who will be able to do whatever they like without the ghosts of foolish prejudices getting in their way.
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Kathy Nicklas-Varraso :
]Gender bias is alive and well.
amen. there were a lot of things i screwed up with my kids. convincing my daughters they were the equal of any male was the one thing i did right. actually, i have a friend who says "but i don't want to have to go down to their level!"
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
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Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.
No, we're Instant Attitudes. But one learns to take a professional interest in what the competition is doing, and Northern Sun is the first place to look for anything "liberal" that's not ours. Pegasus Publishing does many more media stickers (based on TV shows, etc.) and some really vulgar stuff, and Bad Habits does mostly what we call "Bubba stickers" -- the stuff you see in truck stops.
The problem is that, for someone playing the Us vs. Them game, different *is* worse because We are better. And our kids get that trained into them very early, with school and sports rivalries all the way down to the elementary level. From there, it's not a very long jump to "people who live in X are bad because they're Not Like Us" or even "people who don't agree with my politics/religion/whatever are bad because they're Wrong". The difference is more one of degree than of kind.
On Tue, 8 Jul 2003 2:58:36 -0400, vj wrote (in message ):
Or me. I get far better prices than DH, simply because I know a lot more about cars, car repair and mechanic's billing practices. I know what the problem is before I ever go to the mechanic, and have a good idea which parts are necessary to make the repair.
If it's an older car, I ask the mechanic if I can source my own parts -- Mechanics mark up the price on parts to an unconscionable degree. Some mechanics will let you source your own parts, then charge a "lost profit" fee. I don't give those mechanics a second chance.
I always ask if I'll be billed by the book or by the actual time necessary to do the job. All dealerships and many mechanics have a book which states how long a specific repair is supposed to take. The mechanic at those places must charge the length of time that the book states, even if the repair took a longer or shorter time to actually accomplish. Since the repair industry puts out these books, the time alloted is usually very, very generous. A good shop can have fifteen or more billable hours (by the book) by a single mechanic during an eight hour day. Generally, any mechanic who consistently takes longer than the booked time is fired -- he's just not profitable enough. Asking for your old parts back is a good idea, and the law in many places. However, if you don't know what's what in a car, don't even bother: they'll just give you some greasy piece of junk and tell you that was the part they replaced. However, even someone who knows next to nothing about cars can tell if there's a new, shiny part under the grubby old hood. _Always_ look for that part. Asking the mechanic to "point out the parts you replaced" is perfectly fine.
If your car is older, or a clone of a very popular model (We have a Mazda Tribute, which is the same as a Ford Escape), have the auto parts places check the prices on _both_ sets of parts. The part numbers are often the same, but the more popular car will have a lower price. Same with junkyards, although I don't recommend going to one unless you really know what you're doing.
The best advice I have for anyone who is intimidated by going to an auto repair shop is to take your car manual and read it, cover to cover. Take that diagram of what's under the hood, and actually look under the hood and find all those parts. Become familiar with replacing the fluids, pushing the hoses and belts to make sure they're right and checking the air in a tire. Change your oil every 3,000 miles, and follow the "rough service" recommendations for maintenance in your auto manual. (Pretty much everything beyond looking at the car constitutes rough service) Learn how to change a fuse and a headlamp in your car (the manual tells you how).
Turn off the radio and listen for the sounds your car makes when it's running normally. Now you have a baseline to check against when the car acts up (and it will). Take care of small noises before they become big headaches. Be aware that the way you drive can cause some maintentance headaches: personally, I've never had a car that didn't eat a muffler and exhaust system on an annual basis. I know this, so my first replacement muffler in any of my cars is always the one with the lifetime guarantee for all the parts back from the manifold. (Not the Midas guarantee, which is for the muffler only). I save the receipt, and make a notation in a little notebook in the glovie, with the date. Every year, like clockwork, I'm back to Mr. Muffler Man, receipt in hand, and a notation that on XYZ date, he replaced my muffler and pipes back from the manifold.
DH goes through tires like they were free. Our Costco membership more than pays for itself on tire replacement alone. Check your area for a place that repairs your particular car's bugaboo for a decent price. Let them know you'll be back regularly. Look for a place that guarantees their repairs for the life of the car, as long as you own it. Hold onto the original receipts like gold.
ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS pay for auto repairs with a credit card. Not a debit card or a check, a credit card. Preferably from a bank with good customer service. That way, if you got ripped off on a repair, you have at least some recourse. We had to go to the mat when a mechanic put a seized engine in one of Bob's "checkbook cars". You know, "Bob needs a car, and I don't want to get a car loan. How much car can we get for what's hanging around in the checking account?" The mechanic put in the bad engine, and refused to honor his own warranty. I wrote a detailed letter to the bank, sent it return receipt, with copies of all the documentation, and waited. The mechanic knew he was beat, and never even disputed my claim. I got my $1,200 back.
Cars are fun and necessary, but finicky. Knowing a little can help you learn to love cars, and can save you boatloads of money.
Yup. It boils down to seeing the world through a filter of Us vs. Them, where whoever you define as Us is more highly valued than Them. Which evolves into being able dismiss, denigrate, and eventually even try to destroy Them, because obviously they have no value.
Every genocidal historical outrage begins with subtly devaluing some person or group, so that it doesn't 'count' ethically when you exploit or hurt them. At its most extreme, that exploitation or destruction is pursued as a *duty*, rather than being seen as an offense.
It is putting a value-judgement and ranking people high-medium-low on a value-scale based on those differences that is destructive, IMO. Making what you like, and what is like you, Good and what you dislike and what isn't like you Bad. That is where the danger starts.
Just noting and enjoying the cornucopia of differences is part of the fun of getting to know a variety of people from a wide range of backgrounds.
I would also like to see mixed-race people and mixed couples portrayed more. How about a TV show where the the lead characters are a mixed race, mixed religion couple, and that's *not* the focus of the show? Movies where there are wiccans and jews and muslims and hindus, and all that's beside the point? Just another aspect of character development, not part of the plot?
I find it hard to raise my kids with the sense that mixed people and various religions are just part of workaday life, nothing special, because it seems I have to go out of my way to point them out. "Look honey, that's not a Christian!" (not literally, but perhaps you get what I mean?)
It's especially odd that this is the case, since I'm a mixed-race non-Christian.
Have you ever seen a mixed-race Barbie doll? Or superhero? Finding mixed-race dolls is impossible. And there are very few, or no, non-Christian religious children's characters. They're either Christian or "assume Christian by default".
In my opinion, as one of those young women who formerly believed that sexism had been wiped out, it's *good* that these girls are growing up ASSUMING that they will be given equal opportunity; they have a head start, by internalizing the idea that they will not encounter obstacles based on their sex. They'll also be incredibly pissed off when they encounter sexism and are denied something they feel entitled to... entitlement can be a powerful tool, in the right hands.
It's funny; I can walk into a welding shop and get taken seriously, but if I go to a computer store I instantly get the "just let me tell you what you want, little lady" treatment.
Exactly, which is probably why I don't understand the us v. them mentality. Not that I'm naive, because I get it intellectually...just not in my heart...if that makes sense. Sigh.
You bring up some excellent points! The one I'd like to emphasize:
"...take your car manual and read it, cover to cover"
My DH is a service writer at a dealership and tells true horror stories about customers and the vehicles they trust their lives to. The latest was a car with 18,000 miles on it that never *had it's oil or oil filter changed*.
Ghod, yes! I get SO tired of the "Bridget Loves Bernie" premise -- especially its current, even-more-stupid incarnation, "Dharma and Greg". Mixed race is going to take a *long* time, I'm afraid. But did you notice that there were several examples of interracial dating on Buffy, and no particular notice was taken of them either by the plot or by the other characters? I found that encouraging.
Yes, I get that. Last week I saw a gentleman wearing a turban and a shirt monogrammed with the Sikh emblem, and I thought that was pretty cool -- but then, I already *know* that Sikh men wear turbans, and I know what the emblem looks like. How many Americans don't even know that Sikhism *exists*, let alone what its practitioners might wear? It's that default thing again.
That's partly cultural. In America, "mixed-race" virtually doesn't exist. You're either white or you're whatever the other element is. If you're white/black, you're black; if you're white/Asian, you're Asian; but if you're black/Asian, you're black. Let's face it, there are *very* few American-born black people who DON'T have some white ancestry, the legacy of decades of slavery -- but they all count as "black", not "mixed-race".
Or, especially if they're SF/fantasy characters, religion may simply not be mentioned at all. But that leads straight into the "assume by default" mindset.
Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat in the New Mutants) was Jewish, and this was openly used as a plot point more than once. And I think they're allowing Captain Nemo, in the upcoming "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" movie, to remain Sikh. But that only points out how rare it is.
vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@mindspring.com (Lee S. Billings) :
]How many Americans don't even know that Sikhism *exists*, let alone ]what its practitioners might wear?
GROAN! i worked for a family of Pakistani engineers. the "old man" of the operation wanted to know if i wanted to hear his "Sikh" jokes. [i thought he said SICK - until i realized they all involved turbans.] and he kept telling them, even after i said "no, thank you".
----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)
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