You Thilly Goose!!

Tonight's new SP was ok, but nothing special. I thought Jimmy was a pretty interesting character, but I get the feeling that Parker believes the audience thinks Timmy is so cool that we're supposed to sympathize with him, even though he came off as something of a jerk. The ending left a bad taste in my mouth, because by this point I was beginning to like Jimmy. Oh well. Where was Kyle tonight, by the way?

No Jews allowed in scouts either?

Maybe it's not a rule. Maybe Kyle (or more likely his parents) just preferred that he be in "Jew Scouts"?

In article , "Bao H. Lammy" writes:

What was the group Kyle and Ike attended when *mumble* tried to capture Moses in a seashell in order to usurp him as leader of the Jews?

southparkstudios.com, which is organized by the crew of South Park, said themselves that Kyle was in Jew scouts.

In article , "Willie Westwood" writes:

Ah, thanks for the reminder!

Maybe they felt Timmy was getting too much sympathy, so they decided to show that he is only human and reveal a bit of a bitter and evil side of him. I am now convinced, though, that from the way Timmy was able to think all these things through, he is not really retarded, as everybody thought he is, at all, but just unable to walk and has some strange disorder that makes him shout his name all the time. I think Trey wants us to curb our sympathies for Timmy a bit.

Actually, I thought Jimmy started to come off as rather smug and annoying, though he was nowhere near as bad as Timmy. I thought stabbing Jimmy in the back after accepting his token of friendship and reconciliation was quite low. It looks like we may have a Cartman on wheels in the making in Timmy.

I'm also disappointed that neither BGA's speech at the end, nor the experience with the supposedly "straight" scoutmaster, did anything to change the scout committee, nor their backers' ways. No need for legislators to condemn them to the pillory, but BGA's said attempts to "persuade, and help them see the light" seem to have failed. Only good thing was in foiling the egomaniac lawyer's attempt at self-glorification.

Overall I thought this was a pretty good episode and much better than last week's. One of the points which was made in spades is that handicapped people are no saints - they have egos and play games with other people same as the rest of us:-)

Jimmy was willing to go to the mattresses to get Timmy to wear that hat to be his volunteer from the audience. He treated Timmy as though he was a pet and not another kid. Why was it only Timmy who HAD to be Jimmy's volunteer from the audience?

I thought they both came off as pretty bad - pretty much a fight to the finish. This was such an elemental fight for dominance they did everything but mark their territory by pissing on the borders.

Kind of like real life:-(

Yeah:-)

Putting the child molesting scoutmaster in jail wasn't a bad result, either.

LiamD

"CRIPPLE FIGHT" - this could easily become a new catch phrase, i.e., 2001's "they killed Kenny!"

Er... "to the mattress"? I've heard the phrase, "willing to go to the mat with someone", but never "mattresses"..

-Jack

See "The Godfather".

It did look as though BGA and the boys were picking up a lot of momentum for the anti-homophobe cause to change enough minds. I can understand that he chose not to have the legal system meddle with a private organization, but from all the support they got in their campaign, one would think they had gained enough public support to make gays in the scouts voluntarily acceptable. But after BGA dropped his suit, it seems everybody reverted back to their old ways. This was a bit of a letdown.

On Fri, 29 Jun 2001 05:31:56 GMT, "Bill K." wrote:

did you notice the name of the camp on bga's photo was "white swallow". cracked me up, no pun intended :)

would flowers in bloom at bga's with snow all around be considered a mistake?

I think another thing that they may have been saying with Jimmy was that he got the attention as the "handicapped kid" because all of the other kids don't seem to think of Timmy as handicapped, he's just one of the gang. Jimmy went around with his "comedy" act, throwing up the fact that he was handicapped at every opportunity, whereas Timmy just goes around being, well, Timmy.

In article , Rick writes:

Quite honestly, I didn't like Jimmy for that reason.

That and he reminded me of the 'tard that made several appearances on "Facts of Life" that wasn't all that good as a comedian(nne).

Bill K. wrote:

I don't know ... I can totally see doing that to someone who ordered me to wear a stupid hat and called me "Tim-Tim" (or, in my case, "Pop-Pop").

PZB

Well remember, when Jimmy was making fun of Timmy, he was continually saying "I'm living a lie, I'm living a lie..."

So maybe Jimmy knew something that everyone else didn't? I agree that M/T turning Timmy around as a character would be an interesting move, but it might not be one of their smarter ones.

In article , "Bill K." writes:

It appears you missed the point of Big Gay Al's speach entirely, the only good point in this ep.

On 21 Jul 2001 13:10:27 GMT, [email] (Ben Raines) wrote:

Yeah, I can't exactly remember what it was but his point was something about how a private orginization can do what they want and its wrong to get the government or whomever to "make" them change something that they believe in as being an important part of the orginization.

The thing to remember is that if there was an orginization only for homosexuals by the same circumstances a heterosexual could force his way in there through legal bullying. I've always thought the same things about women forcing their way into the men's clubs, there are also women's clubs so its not a wise thing to do.

dstep wrote:

That is indeed what he said. But the original Boy Scouts issue has been flipped around to focus on what BGA said and not on the actual bone of contention, which is: If a private organization excludes specific people, it shouldn't receive contributions -- in cash or in kind -- from public agencies which *all* people (even excluded folks) support with their taxes.

So when, say, a city decides not to donate money or public space (like a school gymnasium) to a private organization that excludes someone, the city is acting to protect that person's right to have his tax money *not* used to discriminate against him. The original beef was never over the right of private organizations to exclude. It was about letting public money and resources support them.

Gay organizations have also done their share of twisting the issue, and I myself (a gay man) *oppose* forced inclusion for the reasons Big Gay Al gave. But I sure as fuck don't want my taxes used to help an organization that would have excluded me. Would anyone?

Imagine if, say, every time you bought a new car and shelled out $2,000 in state sales tax alone -- imagine that your sales tax amount was totally, anal-retentively itemized, and you saw that part of your taxes was going to build or maintain a school that would be periodically donating its space to an organization that claimed you weren't good enough to join them (and thereby in effect also *taught* this claim to its members). Would you just sigh in resignation and acknowledge their "right" to exclude you -- even though they'd using the space, the heat, the electricity, etc., in the very building your tax money helped to build and maintain?

Put it another way: Would you enjoy seeing your local school gym space donated to the Ku Klux Klan every other Tuesday?

Extreme example, same principle. A private organization that divides "the public" into OK and Non-OK has no right to the money or property that's produced, supported, or owned by the public as a *whole*. The Boy Scouts seem to think that isn't true -- because every time the courts strike down their supposed "right" to meet at a public school, the B.S.A. plays its sad little violin and tries to portray itself as the injured party. Few organizations are as good at crocodile tears.

It seems like, for some reason, "I'm a taxpayer, I have rights!" doesn't apply to everyone. That's what's wrong.

So, as a 30 year-old male, how do would I object to my taxes being used to support public high school girl's sports? Not that I want to, but playing devil's advocate here.

"Bao H. Lammy" wrote in message news:[email]...

You're just pissed they won't let you watch. :-P

Well! There you go! Your taxes at work!

Joking aside, the question I point I brought up still remains in abstract form -- that is to say that there are plenty of things that our taxes are used to support that we do not have to approve of directly, nor do we have to be able to take advantage of directly, sayeth the atheist who fully supports BGA's position as stated in the episode (that the Boy Scouts should be able to exclude who they damn well please since they are a private organization) and Mark T.'s position:

"If a private organization excludes specific people, it shouldn't receive contributions -- in cash or in kind -- from public entities which *all* people (even excluded folks) support with their taxes."

Just wanted to know how to argue the many situations that arise involving groups receiving public money that *do* exclude. It's a more complex issue than is immediately apparent, iow.

A good point, and it raises a facet I should have addressed earlier, but I felt obliged not to bloat the already-long post even further.

Two answers: First, you presumably don't object to that exclusion and it presumably doesn't hurt you. That is, it's not bona fide discrimination, as in: unjust, injurious, prejudicial.

Second, the notion of gender-segregated school sports (as well as gender-segregated other school stuff, like shop and home-ec) *has* in fact been legally challenged -- and usually with success. At a public school in the small tight-assed New England town where I grew up, there have been girls playing on the "boys"' intramural soccer teams. I understand it wasn't received warmly at first, but hey, neither was the notion letting blacks vote in Alabama. Few such changes are ever welcomed initially, but that's one big reason we have courts -- to protect us as individuals from the unfair wishes of a non-objective majority.

The Scouts exploit the fallacious notion that What Most Folks Think is automatically right. They whine about so-called "moral values" despite our much-vaunted guarantees to freedom of belief. (The sloppier fringe of their supporters will sometimes collapse during an argument and say moronic things like "But there has to be one standard!" -- never realizing the fundamental flaw in asserting such a requirement.) The value of an impartial judiciary[1] has never been more obvious than in the past few decades, which has seen so much activity in the area of civil rights. But countless millions are still spent to pass idiotic laws attempting to restrict basic human freedoms. Many of these laws are later trashed by the courts.

(When you watch this kind of colossal waste decade after decade, you start to think maybe the Libertarian idea is the way out. Then you look at how fucked up their party seems to be, and it seems totally hopeless. So you hold your nose and vote for hairballs like Al Gore, hoping you won't hate yourself in the morning. You hope you can ask someone electable to watch out for your rights, even if your rights aren't "popular." You may as well ask the Pope to masturbate on PBS.)

Thankfully, the objectivity that the courts exist to preserve *does* eventually trickle down to the masses -- never fast enough, to be sure, but at least it does get there: Forty years ago, you could hear cocktail chatter about, say, "the coloreds," and nobody in the room would be the least bit embarrassed to hear someone say "They're OK as long as they know THEIR PLACE" [emphasis supplied]. Today, you'd get a roomful of openmouthed stares at best and ruptured testicles at worst -- even in the most lily-white country-club communities, because such a sentiment is finally unacceptable just about anywhere outside the KKK. We can thank the courts for that, because it *never* would have come from Congress or the Presidency.

I could go on. But, that would just mean... I'd... go... on....

I want to say, I'm incredibly pleased with the caliber of discussion in this newsgroup, which seems elevated far beyond what was typical back in 1997-1998. I unsubscribe when SP is in reruns, returning only when first-run episodes resume, so I haven't seen it in complete evolution. What happened to all the screaming lamers who used to overrun it? (no, i don't miss em, just curious).

-- Mark Tangard  ----------------------------
------ WWW: http://www.speakeasy.org/~mtangard ----------------------
------------- "Life is nothing if you aren't obsessed." --John Waters
---------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Granted, not that we *have* such a thing nationwide, as this last election made oh so clear....

This one paragraph is incredibly ACCURATE...

Well, when "American drinks and goes home"... and goes to sleep...

"You as the Pope must make love to a beautiful young woman."

"AW, I'M NOT A-GONNA DO THIS! I'M THE HEAD OF HE CATHOLIC CHURCH, WITH ALL THE NUNS AND THE LITTLE BAMBINOS!"

"Your Holiness, this message is from the Mafia."

"... I do it. But there must be four condtions upon which I do this. Number one. This girl, she must be BLIND so she cannot see what is happening to her this day! Number two! She must be deaf, so she cannot hear what is happening to her this day! Number three! She must be dumb, so she cannot tell what has happened to her this day!"

"And number four?"

"Number four -- SHE GOTTA HAVE BIG TITS! BIG ONES LIKE THIS! BIG TITS, BOOM BOOM BOOM!"

(snip)

Must be sweeps month. Typical ratings stunt.

LiamD

Did you see the Pope on TV with the Smirk??? "Lookit that, my left leg just fell off!"

(BTW, Smirk looked like he'd willingly give the Pope a hummer!)

Missed it, but he's *really* after the Catholic vote:-)

LiamD (Smirk - like that <G>)

<snip>

How is the Libertarian Party fucked up? Just wondering what you meant here...is it their beliefs that you are referring to, or the party itself? It is the third-largest party right now and is growing quickly. Libertarian candidates have been elected in ever-increasing numbers. ... I don't know about the old days here w/ idiots overrunning the group, but I'm glad things have gotten better as well. Every now and then, things erupt a bit, but the core of regulars keeps things under control, imo.

"Bao H. Lammy" wrote:

The stated goals, mainly. The notion that we could survive with no taxes, with all services privatized, with no civil rights laws at all, with basically zero participation by government in government. Want a pothole filled? Maybe, if you write a check to the privately owned street maintenance company. Old highway in rural area collapsing and not enough local money to repave it? Tough noogies. And so on.

"Mark Tangard" wrote in message news:[email]...

You know, that'd work if most people weren't ignorant inconsiderate dipshits. Which is why I'm waiting for Dogbert to take over.

And there ya have it. The failures of both communism and capitalism are rooted in the fact that people aren't cooperative. (I know this subthread is about neither, but the comment's still valid IMHO. Any system that depends on the general [eeugh] populace to act nobly will never run like a top.)

Mark

These goals are not shared by all Libertarians, and most of the ones that do believe in them as goals do not think it is something that can happen overnight, or even in a decade. It is an extreme paradigm shift that no society can endure in short time, imo.

That said, I cannot explain the party's beliefs better than the party itself. I suggest that anyone interested check out this page for well- written and concise explanations of the Libertarian Party's beliefs: http://www.lp.org/issues/ If you do so, you'll see that the party leaves much room for the role of government -- just not very much relative to the huge role it plays now.

People are, of course, free to choose their political representatives. Maybe the LP is not for you. I have no fantasies of converting any of you in particular, or anyone in particular really, but only post re the LP when I see it portrayed in an extreme or fallacious manner.

"Bao H. Lammy" wrote:

Well, whenever I have seen those goals stated (granted, only 2 or 3 times, but from different sources over a period of maybe 30 years), they've been stated as if they *were* both possible and possible in a short time. I don't see that they're possible at all. The whole paradigm seems unworkably extreme (and I don't think that's because I know & luv the two-party system terribly well, having been an independent since 1980). Just as a few examples, basic services like roads, transit, mail, and public health are IMHO never going to be provided for by a populace supposedly acting for its own greater benefit.

I don't mean to be requesting a reply. Not only does a new SP start in 3 hours (pant pant), but I'm probably gonna have to take a leave from the group for a few weeks while excavating my backlogged tasks.

Cheers, Mark

Very well put, Mark. I hope it gets through some peoples' heads...

"D.G. Porter" wrote:

Thank you. I just wish the FIRST draft, which my newsreader told me didn't get sent, hadn't *shown up* a while later, *after* I'd sent the SECOND and somewhat expanded version, under a different heading "Scouts..." (q.v.), which apparently nobody noticed, or maybe nobody followed up on because it looked like a repost since its first several grafs are the same. ;( Some days my PC just plain hates me....

dstep wrote:

That is what he said. But the original Boy Scouts issue has been flipped around to focus on what Big Gay Al said and not on the actual bone of contention, which is: If a private organization excludes specific people, it shouldn't receive contributions -- in cash or in kind -- from public entities which *all* people (even excluded folks) support with their taxes.

So when, say, a city decides not to donate money or public space (like a school gymnasium) to a private organization that excludes a certain group, that city is acting to protect that group's right to have their tax money *not* used to discriminate against them. The original beef was NOT about the right of private organizations to exclude. It was about letting public money & resources support them.

Gay organizations have also done their share of twisting the issue, and I myself (a gay man) *oppose* forced inclusion for the reasons Big Gay Al gave. But I sure as fuck don't want my taxes used to help an organization that excludes me. Would anyone?

Imagine if, say, every time you bought a new car and shelled out $2,000 in sales tax along with it -- imagine that your sales tax amount was totally, exhaustively itemized, and the receipt said that a chunk your sales tax was gonna build or maintain a school, and also that this school that would be periodically donating its space to an organization that claimed you weren't "moral enough" to join it (and thereby in effect *taught* this contention to its members). Would you just sigh in resignation and acknowledge their "right" to exclude you -- even though they would be using the space, the heat, the electricity, etc., in the very building that your tax money helped to build and maintain?

Put it another way: Would you enjoy seeing your local school gym space donated to the Ku Klux Klan every other Tuesday?

Extreme example, same principle. A private organization that divides "the public" into OK and Non-OK has no right to the money or property that belongs to the *undivided* public. The Boy Scouts seem to think that isn't true -- because every time the courts strike down their supposed "right" to meet at a public school, the B.S.A. plays its sad little violin and tries to portray itself as the injured party. Few other organizations are as skilled at the crocodile-tears thing.

I couldn't care less if the Scouts want to restrict their membership. I just don't want them asserting that right and then laying claim to things I've paid for. For some reason the Scouts want me to believe they're *entitled* to part of the money I make or to the use of the things that I, as a taxpayer, partly own. That's what's wrong.

If the gay organization meets in a *public* space, then any other citizen -- being a member of the public -- already HAS the right to enter that space, no "legal bullying" required. This in fact *does* happen, and nobody can do anything about it unless the visitor breaks a law. But if the organization pays for its own *private* space, then no non-member has any such rights. That's what "private" means. The Boy Scouts don't seem to understand what "public" means.

In article , dstep writes:

Yeah, that was more or less the point.

Turnabout is fair play, after all.

Timmy did not come off as a jerk!

Anyone who could be creative enough to try to have someone killed by dressing them up as Kenny is ok in my book. That was a hilarious scene.