SexualHarrassment Filter.

May 26, 2007 10:26 AM

Since when did MetaFilter become Sexual Harrassment Filter? How is a link to videos showing a teacher being groped by her students appropriate for an FPP? HOPE ME.
posted by grapefruitmoon to etiquette/policy at 10:26 AM (93 comments total)

HOPE ME.

no, GROPE ME.

(sorry)
posted by jonmc at 10:30 AM on May 26, 2007

* gropes grapefruitmoon's ass
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:31 AM on May 26, 2007

Apology accepted. But for the groping, you owe me three hours in detention writing "jonmc is a very naughty boy" until you fill up a whole notebook.

Five subjects.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:31 AM on May 26, 2007

* slaps UbuRoivas with a glove

Pistols at dawn.
posted by Kattullus at 10:34 AM on May 26, 2007

(heh. you all should know better than to feed me straight lines)
posted by jonmc at 10:36 AM on May 26, 2007

(what about gay lines? Can we feed you gay lines?)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:38 AM on May 26, 2007

a post like this would never have happened back in the day, as my late father used to say, when men were men and women were damn glad of it.
posted by bruce at 10:39 AM on May 26, 2007

How is a link to videos showing a teacher being groped by her students appropriate for an FPP?

Because it's not just a link to some videos of groping. It's a link to a news story about the groping, and the surrounding debate.
posted by chrismear at 10:44 AM on May 26, 2007

Sexual harrassment is against the law. Please don't use MetaFilter to help you break the law. Alert the FBI immediately.

I kid, I kid.
posted by fandango_matt at 10:46 AM on May 26, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

(what about gay lines? Can we feed you gay lines?)

Sure, just add a lot of salt and pepper.

(see folks, when you're handsome as me, behavior like this is 'roguishly charming.' If you're not, it's sexual harassment).
posted by jonmc at 10:46 AM on May 26, 2007

Pistols? The offense I take at the cliche is enough to warrant an offer of broadswords in a pit. Midnight.
posted by carsonb at 10:48 AM on May 26, 2007

Excuse me -- I'm sure I don't know what "broadswords in a pit" might mean, but I know it's not the sort of thing I visit this site for. I'll thank you to keep such talk to yourself!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:55 AM on May 26, 2007

grapefruitmoon, are you serious? This was a link to a news article about a weird pseudo-groping incident. It was odd because the teacher was fired even though she was the person being groped. The thread was actually, alst time I checked, turning into a pretty intresting discussion of who is "harmed" in situations like this and even though it was a bit of a single-link newsfilter, it seemed okay to me. This thread, on the other hand, seems to have very little to redeem it at this point.
posted by jessamyn at 10:59 AM on May 26, 2007

farkfilter.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 11:01 AM on May 26, 2007

The main link in the cited post now doesn't work.
posted by macadamiaranch at 11:04 AM on May 26, 2007

Actually, I was serious. The videos being posted in a "HEY! Look at THIS!" sort of manner adds to the humilation of the teacher. Why are these videos even on the internet in the first place? Just because they CAN? Is it necessary to have a discussion about the incident involving the videos? And if there weren't videos involved, would people still be discussing it? Does it even matter if the teacher "appears" to be complicit? She's getting fondled by students! This is utterly, utterly humiliating. And circulating around the internet just makes it ten thousand times more humiliating. It's like having those embarrassing nude pics that your exboyfriend took showing up on MySpace... only a lot worse, as this is a professional and not a personal situation.

And now, I have to go to my own job where hopefully, no customers will fondle me.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:08 AM on May 26, 2007

I removed it since the link doesn't work anymore and who knows what it was all about.
posted by jessamyn at 11:10 AM on May 26, 2007

grapefruitmoon, you know I love you (in a totally non-adulterous way), but you can't seriously be suggesting that all MeFi posts pass some sort of PC filter to make sure they don't involve anything offensive to anyone. How likely is it that this teacher is going to see this MeFi post? And even if (somehow) she did, would it add significantly to what she's getting thrown at her in her own country? Somehow I doubt it. Obviously this hits a nerve for you, but you know as well as I do that MeFi is not for the thin of skin. I suggest a quiet paddle in the longboat and some deep breathing.
posted by languagehat at 11:14 AM on May 26, 2007

On non-preview: Huh. Well, I guess that settles that.
posted by languagehat at 11:15 AM on May 26, 2007

Where the hell is the longboat moored at these days anyway? I haven't seen it go by in a while.
posted by Skygazer at 11:21 AM on May 26, 2007

We need a "Fark Filter" flag for crap like this.
posted by LarryC at 11:21 AM on May 26, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I agree with grapefruitmoon: a bad, humiliating post with no redeeming value at all. Why was this on MetaFilter to begin with?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:26 AM on May 26, 2007

"Why was this on MetaFilter to begin with?"

Because IronWolve needs a paddling?
posted by davy at 11:27 AM on May 26, 2007

I think the idea that the post was humiliating to the teacher has to do with what you impose upon it; it may have been a case of sexual harassment, or not. I can't say it was the most edifying thing I've seen here, but it did prompt what I thought was an interesting conversation, so...?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:37 AM on May 26, 2007

2nding LarryC; I flagged this dumb-ass fpp as 'other' when I first saw it & moved on.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:51 AM on May 26, 2007

a post like this would never have happened back in the day, as my late father used to say, when men were men and women were damn glad of it.

And sheep were nervous.
posted by evilcolonel at 11:53 AM on May 26, 2007

Not quite entirely MIA.

And I thought there was a decently interesting discussion around it, even if the original post was somewhat weak.
posted by Arturus at 11:54 AM on May 26, 2007

And sheep were nervous.

sez ewe.
posted by jonmc at 12:00 PM on May 26, 2007

Also, a link to the video.

I don't think the thread should have been closed.
posted by oaf at 12:14 PM on May 26, 2007

Forget the thread, I can't believe my haLOLrious ethnic slurs were deleted!
posted by dgaicun at 12:24 PM on May 26, 2007

I can't believe my haLOLrious ethnic slurs were deleted!

If you'd like, I can post them here so that people can debate their merits.
posted by jessamyn at 12:29 PM on May 26, 2007

straight lines
flowin through my mind...
posted by Eideteker at 12:34 PM on May 26, 2007

I'm just curious as to why it took three months for this story to hit MetaFilter. (I actually had a quick search, assuming it was a double.)

Whatever, certainly not a great post, and very poorly framed by IronWolve, but not deletion-worthy, until the link went dead. (Also, why 'fake?' as one of the deletion reasons, when several members of the site based in Italy confirmed and expanded on the story, and several others pointed out it made the news earlier in the year?)
posted by jack_mo at 12:39 PM on May 26, 2007

I don't think it should have been deleted either. It won't go into the MeFi hall of fame, but it was news, and happened to spark an interesting discussion about gender and culture. Updating the link, as others have done in this thread, would have been better-- but that's a tough task to assign to the admins.

In protest of the decision, I plan to not do anything about it.
posted by ibmcginty at 12:55 PM on May 26, 2007

not deletion-worthy, until the link went dead.

And it wasn't deleted until the link went dead. If stuff is on the front page, heavily flagged and goes to a one-link now dead/link news report, we're really not going to go hunting down the Google cache for it. I changed the reason for deletion to not be making a play on words of the OPs post.
posted by jessamyn at 1:02 PM on May 26, 2007

fairly decent machine translation.
posted by delmoi at 1:03 PM on May 26, 2007

We have the Blue, Green, Grey, etc. Why not the Pink?

It could be called "EroFilter" or "MetaWank". That way we could link to awesome, kinky or even degrading content. Lurker traffic would soar and the Pink would generate even more ad revenue. There is a business case and every community needs a red light district, so why not do it?
posted by KokuRyu at 1:25 PM on May 26, 2007

It could be called... "MetaWank".

You're commenting in it.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:29 PM on May 26, 2007

posted by KokuRyu We have the Blue, Green, Grey, etc. Why not the Pink? That way we could link to awesome, kinky or even degrading content.

MetaSturbate.
posted by fandango_matt at 1:30 PM on May 26, 2007

You're commenting in it.

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

"Billy? You've been in that bathroom for ages—what are you doing in there?"

*panting sounds*
"I'm... commenting, Mom!"
posted by languagehat at 2:04 PM on May 26, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

You're commenting in it.

MetaPalmolive.
posted by jonmc at 2:19 PM on May 26, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I would hate to see a MetaSturbate flame war.

"I took a real pounding from the Ban Hammer last night..."
posted by KokuRyu at 2:20 PM on May 26, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Meh... I don't think it was deletion worthy before the link-brokeness, but it could've been fleshed out more. The "cruel prank, or was she allowing them?" bit sounds like FoxNews-style cleverly hidden editorial.

I'm a bit suprised nobody picked at dgaicun comment:

The evidence simply doesn't show any sort of psychological harm from these encounters, which is obvious to any male anyway (oh noes, an older woman let me have my way with her - it's every adolescent boy's nightmare!!).

Females really can/do get hurt by the same thing. I'm entirely comfortable with laws based around sex differences.

I get the point of stuff preceding that, but then it veers into "young guys can't be sexually harassed / abused or raped, because they're all horny" territory. Which shares borders with the sovereign nations of "promiscuous women can't be raped, because they're sluts" and "gays can't be raped, because they love teh cock".
posted by CKmtl at 2:20 PM on May 26, 2007

I agree that we do not have enough information to pass any judgment. The only thing I can conclude is that thongs are entirely inappropriate workplace attire.
posted by geoff. at 2:52 PM on May 26, 2007

MetaSturbate.

*snort*

I thought it was a pretty weak post with a fairly solid (and when I first saw it, already well-developed) conversation despite itself. Not much flag action when I saw it, either, so, eh, wait and see.
posted by cortex at 2:55 PM on May 26, 2007

The only thing I can conclude is that thongs are entirely inappropriate workplace attire.

Unless, of course, one works in a strip club or tanning salon.
posted by jonmc at 2:57 PM on May 26, 2007

Which shares borders with the sovereign nations of "promiscuous women can't be raped, because they're sluts" and "gays can't be raped, because they love teh cock".

Um, no, CKmtl, because both your examples are rape, while I was discussing underage yet consensual encounters. Males later rate these consensual experiences as positive, and suffer no psychological sequelae, while females later rate them as negative and do deal with psychological sequelae. So in the case of females, age moderates their "consent", while the same is not true for males.

If an adult female touches an adolescent male in a way he did not invite or rejected, of course that's sexual abuse. But the label of (statutory) "rape" for a consensual encounter between an older woman and an 'underage' male is of questionable justification. Some kind of actual harm needs to be demonstrated, but we find the opposite - they think it's peachy.
posted by dgaicun at 3:12 PM on May 26, 2007

jessamyn writes 'And it wasn't deleted until the link went dead. If stuff is on the front page, heavily flagged and goes to a one-link now dead/link news report, we're really not going to go hunting down the Google cache for it. I changed the reason for deletion to not be making a play on words of the OPs post.'

I'm always getting shit off subs and editors for my vague and endless comma-riddled sentences - I was agreeing that it should be deleted for the dead link. Dim of me not to spot the play on words, too: thought you were wondering, not riffing.
posted by jack_mo at 3:20 PM on May 26, 2007

posted by languagehat "Billy? You've been in that bathroom for ages—what are you doing in there?"
*panting sounds*
"I'm... commenting, Mom!"

This is what's known as "Favoriting yourself."
posted by fandango_matt at 3:59 PM on May 26, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

That's disgusting.
posted by chrismear at 4:24 PM on May 26, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yeah, but you should see the other guy.
posted by cortex at 4:41 PM on May 26, 2007

First off, I agree with you about statutory rape sometimes being bullshit. And that the emphasis should be placed on whether or not there's harm and distress caused.

Um, no, CKmtl, because both your examples are rape, while I was discussing underage yet consensual encounters.

OK, I was being a little glib. I know you were referring to consensual sex, so... switch all above instances of 'rape' and 'molestation' to 'possibly be taken advantage of', to represent consensual encounters with possible negative after-effects. Fair enough? Even with that modification, I still think your take on young males is comparable to the other two examples.

Males later rate these consensual experiences as positive, and suffer no psychological sequelae, while females later rate them as negative and do deal with psychological sequelae.

Absolutely all the time? 100% of all instances past, present, and future? It is inconceivable that a young male would experience harm and distress, and that a young female wouldn't, from at-the-time consensual encounters?

Most young males would probably find it, as you say, peachy. But there have been, and will be, some that don't find it so peachy. And there's probably some girls who come away from it thinking it was peachy as well.

Making statutory rape laws that treat 'victims' differently based on sex/gender (actually, under your scheme, there would explicitly be no such thing as a male victim, since males are never victimized) would be as bullshit as the laws and attitudes that don't take harm into account. The young females who don't experience harm and distress would be in the same position as the majority of young males; being made into a victim by the legal system when they don't feel victimized. And the young males who do feel harmed by it would be completely ignored and dismissed.

Not only would they have to deal with the societal pressure of "guys must like sex; there's something wrong with you if you feel bad about it - you're not a man; you got some ass - quit being a whiny little bitch!", once they work up the nerve to report it they would run into a dead-end at the local PD. "Sorry, kiddo, the law says it's not a crime, because guys are supposed to like it." How would that be as a source of psychological sequelae?

And damn, now I want a peach.
posted by CKmtl at 4:53 PM on May 26, 2007

Males later rate these consensual experiences as positive, and suffer no psychological sequelae, while females later rate them as negative and do deal with psychological sequelae.

Don't be so sure. While I myself never had anything of the sort happen to me, those men I know, or know of, who had sex with older women with some sort of authority towards them, whether teachers, babysitters or otherwise, generally say that the experience was scary at the time, left them confused afterwards and set them up for a wealth of sexual and relationship issues down the road.
posted by Kattullus at 4:57 PM on May 26, 2007

Absolutely all the time? 100% of all instances past, present, and future? It is inconceivable that a young male would experience harm and distress, and that a young female wouldn't, from at-the-time consensual encounters?

Some people regret and are harmed by consensual relationships at all ages. The point is it isn't different to any interesting degree for males. Their experiences are actually, on average, positive, so where's the fire?
posted by dgaicun at 5:06 PM on May 26, 2007

Kattullus, see here.
posted by dgaicun at 5:09 PM on May 26, 2007

Potato wave!
posted by miss lynnster at 5:26 PM on May 26, 2007

Some people regret and are harmed by consensual relationships at all ages. The point is it isn't different to any interesting degree for males.

The same could be said about females. 18-year-old college girls regret sex and get their heads messed up by sex, be it with other 18-year-old college freshmen or with older men. Then why should it be a crime to mess up a 16-year-old girl with sex that she, at the time, consents to?

Their experiences are actually, on average, positive, so where's the fire?

The fire is with using an absolute statement ("Young males are not adversely affected by sex with an older female"), whether obtained through stereotyping or statistical analysis, to doubly victimize young males who feel victimized.
posted by CKmtl at 5:31 PM on May 26, 2007

No, obviously the absolute statement is "Young males are not [importantly more] adversely affected by sex with an older female [than males that have sex with women of equal or younger ages]".
posted by dgaicun at 5:50 PM on May 26, 2007

Kattullus, see here.

That's a meta-analysis of child sexual abuse, first of all. It's not exactly proper, as you noted previously, to compare child abuse with consentual sex that would qualify as statutory rape. Sure, some statutory situations might be involved in all those studies in the meta-analysis, but there's also bound to be a whole bunch involving preteen victims.

From that study's Discussion section, Gender Equivalence sub-section...

The relation between CSA and adjustment problems was generally stronger for women than men. Two thirds of male CSA experiences, but less than a third of female CSA experiences, were reported not to have been negative at the time. Three of every eight male experiences, but only one of every 10 female experiences, were reported to have been positive at the time. Patterns for current reflections about these events were similar.

Meaning one third of males considered it negative at the time, and 5 out of every 8 considered it non-positive (neutral, or negative). That's hardly a small minority, not nearly small enough to justify a "young males love sex" attitude. Yes, it's about child sexual abuse, but it's the study you chose.
posted by CKmtl at 5:57 PM on May 26, 2007

Then why should it be a crime to mess up a 16-year-old girl with sex that she, at the time, consents to?

Well, it doesn't have to be. I'm not like a fanatical statutory defender, but some sort of limit will protect more younger women, on average, at the expense of the minority of 13 year olds who like sex with adult men. I think it's overall a pretty good law for females. On the other hand it would end up preventing more positive encounters for 13 year old boys at the expense of the minority who will feel bad. We might as well prevent 26 year old men from having sex with 26 year old women for the same reason. It would prevent the same harm at the same expense.
posted by dgaicun at 6:00 PM on May 26, 2007

This is what's known as "Favoriting yourself."

I already waste enough here time on procrasturbation.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:12 PM on May 26, 2007

Fuck. I shouldn't try to be funny before my first coffee.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:12 PM on May 26, 2007

some sort of limit will protect more younger women, on average, ... On the other hand it would end up preventing more positive encounters for 13 year old boys

It may be slightly cynical, but I don't think statutory laws - even the current ones - really do much protecting. If they did, there wouldn't be so many younger women feeling victimized or harmed by statutory-type encounters. The laws only seem to punish the older guy who, possibly, coerced her into it. So, writing a female-only statutory rape law wouldn't actually protect any more younger women than the current laws.

It would, I suppose, allow younger men to have positive encounters. However, the female-only law would rob a non-trivial minority of younger men of legal recourse, should they feel victimized or harmed. They'd be put in, roughly, the same situation as a female rape victim who - when she reports the rape - is faced with misogynist police who refuse to take her seriously and write off her rape as something she had coming or should've liked. Justice isn't served by that, and the victim is harmed even more.

Statutory laws that put the emphasis on coercion and/or harm and/or distress after the fact (rather than your suggested sex-of-the-younger-person) would be more effective at providing legal recourse to those who'd want it and allowing those for whom the sex would be positive to go forth and get laid.

... at the expense of the minority who will feel bad.

Based on the general vibe from earlier comments, and how you tried to counter Kattullus' personal (well, personal secondhand) experiences... it comes off like you're minimizing both the number of men who had negative or harmful encounters as kids/youths, and the impact thereof. That's what got under my skin in the first place. It's not like it's a tiny fraction of a percent, nor are they just sulking in their rooms for a couple days.
posted by CKmtl at 7:22 PM on May 26, 2007

*puts on best Minnesotan accent* Well now, Mr. Hat, I don't see why the teacher herself has to see that video for it to be humiliating. Those kids! Why does this need to be on the internet for God and everybody! Making it was insulting enough, but more people certainly don't need to see it. And don't we fine people here on the Filter have better things to do than sit around and dissect the merits of exactly when in the proceedings this fine lady's bottom was fondled? Oh my stars, I thought that this was about the best of the web.

I'll just be in the longboat with this jello salad. I put some lovely cocktail weiners in it.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:23 PM on May 26, 2007

Please refrain from putting your weiners in things.

Freakin' perverts.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:01 PM on May 26, 2007

Males later rate these consensual experiences as positive, and suffer no psychological sequelae, while females later rate them as negative and do deal with psychological sequelae. So in the case of females, age moderates their "consent", while the same is not true for males.

Jesus. That's not how consent works. Your theory basically works out to: "Most guys your age eventually decide they liked it, so it doesn't matter whether you do or not". If you want to argue that age vitiates consent only in the case of females, then what you need is some evidence that males are more capable of consenting, not that they regret it less later. (that would be biological evidence, if your starting point is biology-based inadequacy for consent due to age)
posted by dreamsign at 12:20 AM on May 27, 2007

I wonder if there's any interest in a group called NAWBLA?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:45 AM on May 27, 2007

However, the female-only law would rob a non-trivial minority of younger men of legal recourse, should they feel victimized or harmed.

Lots of input to that thread was to the effect that minority really is trivial. It’s like people who feel victimised when someone winks at them; I’m sure they exist, but outlawing winking for their sake is not a net win.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 3:04 AM on May 27, 2007

I frankly despair at these Byzantine arguments about sex.

OK, sex sometimes (often, even) leads to regret. At any age, even if we tend to make more foolish choices the younger we are. That's how humans learn, right? For teenagers, male and female, sex is something new and exciting, so they tend to make more and bigger mistakes. It is, of course, an adult's responsability not to exploit those mistakes. But then, some adults can be foolish too, especially when it comes to sex, particularly when it comes to sex with younger people.

But teenagers, foolish as they might be, aren't children, and shouldn't be absolved from their own responsabilities either. I seriously can't get my mind around the fact that in some places, adults may impose the death penalty on 16-year olds, but not have consensual sex with them. That's all sorts of fucked up, sorry.

If somebody comes to regret and be psychologically damaged by his or her own fucking choice (pun intended), I'm afraid that he or she will mainly have him- or herself to blame for it. I mean, even a rapist may later be psychologically damaged by his own crime (especially if he's caught, of course). That certainly doen't make him the victim.

BTW, it should also be the adults' responsability to make sure that teenagers are correctly informed about sex and its risks through good sex education before they start being so strongly attracted to it. Maybe we should rather work a little more on that, don't you think?
posted by Skeptic at 3:06 AM on May 27, 2007

I wonder if there's any interest in a group called NAWBLA?

Naw.
posted by oaf at 8:12 AM on May 27, 2007

Blah.
posted by jonmc at 9:04 AM on May 27, 2007

*puts on best Minnesotan accent* Well now, Mr. Hat...

Mr. Garrison isn't from Minnesota, he's from Arkansas. As shown in the Brown Note episode, wherein the class attends a massive recorder recital lead by Yoko Ono and Kenny G. Mr. Garrison freaks out about having to go back to Arkansas, because his parents still live there and he's traumatized by the fact that his father never molested him.

*ahem* anyway...

Aidan Kehoe: Lots of input to that thread was to the effect that minority really is trivial. It’s like people who feel victimised when someone winks at them; I’m sure they exist, but outlawing winking for their sake is not a net win.

Erm... Where's this input of which you speak? The only things addressing whether or not a majority (and how large of a majority) of boys / young teens would not be adversely affected are dgaicun's own comment and a couple jokey comments. The thread focuses mostly on whether teacher or the students are at fault for the groping and air-humping.

Plus, the study that dgaicun his/herself uses as a (flawed re: statutory rape) justification for a female-only statutory statute expressly shows that it's not a trivial minority: one-third, or 5 out of 8, depending on if you want to use 'negative' or 'neutral or negative' as your criteria for "didn't find it peachy".
posted by CKmtl at 9:23 AM on May 27, 2007

When I was in 7th grade in a small town in Idaho, I had the high school principal's wife for a science teacher. She was a short, very homely woman or average weight who was very anatomically distinguished in the thoraxical region. Her every day working uniform was a sensible below the knee skirt topped with the most diaphanous, sheer, see-through blouse underneath which she wore deep cut lacy bras that came in colors other than white--colors we until then had no idea were colors that bras came in--violet, black, red and green. She never wore the same color bra two days in a row. I don't know where she got them or how--we didn't even know about Frederick's of Hollywood in those days.

In demeanor, she was remote, unemotional and business like while she strode back and forth in front of the class with her arms folded underneath her breasts. Sometimes she would put her hands on her desk and lean forward, to make her point with a veritable lace lined Grand Canyon of cleavage at bulls eye level. That was a most uncomfortable class. I still shudder to think about it. Yet apart from her foofy high necked gauze blouses, absolutely prim and chaste apart from their transparency, and the kaleidscope of lacy cleavage underneath, there was absolutely nothing lewd or prurient about her behavior and, despite our all being in 7th grade, none of us kids even alluded to this outside of class or ever acknowledged the surreal incongruous facts of it all.

Parts of my childhood were like scenes of a documentary written by Charles Fort and shot by David Lynch. Sometimes, when we were in grade school, we found tiny dead minnows in puddles on our playground after hard rains. And the way we got spanked, whipped and slapped around in grade school would land a teacher in prison for decades had such happened anytime anywhere else in the last thirty years. And then we got to junior high and met Mrs. Todd's bras. Sometimes I think PTSD is a natural result of living through childhood.
posted by y2karl at 9:25 AM on May 27, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Sigh. Lucky bastard. My English teacher wore tight white polyester pants and no underwear.

And he was male.

It was traumatizing.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:53 AM on May 27, 2007

removed it since the link doesn't work anymore and who knows what it was all about.
posted by jessamyn at 2:10 PM on May 26 [+] [!]


The link does work.

But, whatever, right?
posted by four panels at 10:26 AM on May 27, 2007

The link does work. But, whatever, right?

The link works now apparently. The link was broken for most of yesterday, just redirecting to the main page of the newspaper. If a one link FPP goes to a broken link we're not going to go to herculean efforts to revive it. But whatever, right? Feel free to make up your own story about why it was removed.
posted by jessamyn at 10:40 AM on May 27, 2007

MetaFilter: But, whatever, right?
posted by phaedon at 11:02 AM on May 27, 2007

Mr. Garrison isn't from Minnesota, he's from Arkansas.

Huh? Where did that come from? Bill Clinton's from Arkansas, too, for what that's worth. I'm pretty sure grapefruitmoon is just placing Scandahoovians in their natural habitat. (Longboat, Scandahoovians, get it?)
posted by languagehat at 11:34 AM on May 27, 2007

Oh, heh.

I didn't realize it was in response to you and you were the Mr. Hat in question, since your last comment was way upthread. I thought she was immitating Mr Garrison from South Park... who, when he had the Mr. Hat handpuppet, would indirectly lecture by starting off with "Well, Mr. Hat..."
posted by CKmtl at 12:05 PM on May 27, 2007

I'm pretty sure grapefruitmoon is just placing Scandahoovians in their natural habitat.

Yeah, all the Scandahoovians in my family are from Minnesota. Lake Superior may be, well, inferior to the Atlantic, but it's where their longboats reside nonetheless.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:48 PM on May 27, 2007

Fight the power, four panels!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:23 PM on May 27, 2007

To add to the confusion, I read it as "Mr. Garrison [Keilor]..." and so decided the Minnesota reference was fine but didn't know where the hell Lake Wobegon had come from.
posted by cortex at 3:31 PM on May 27, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Fun fact: Garrison Keilor and my mom grew up on the same town. My grandmother will have you know that he's just putting on airs, his name is just Gary.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:06 PM on May 27, 2007

(Oh yeah, Wikipedia if my claims seem spurious.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:07 PM on May 27, 2007

Sometimes I sprinkle shredded coconut on my fruit salad for an extra treat.
Is that wrong?
posted by Dizzy at 9:24 PM on May 27, 2007

Only if your fruit salad contains chopped up homosexuals.
posted by Kattullus at 10:30 PM on May 27, 2007

When I was in 7th grade in a small town in Idaho, I had the high school principal's wife

See, the problem with starting a sentence this way is that my gasp interrupts the rest of it.
posted by dreamsign at 1:11 AM on May 28, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'm confused - the link seems to work fine, and the videos (albeit disturbing) seem to work fine, and the deletion reason seems to be for a non-working link.
posted by By The Grace of God at 5:04 AM on May 28, 2007

Read the thread, whydontcha?
posted by languagehat at 2:33 PM on May 28, 2007

If a one link FPP goes to a broken link we're not going to go to herculean efforts to revive it.

It's herculean to undelete it? I understand it's generally not worth the effort to go back and find FPPs that were deleted for non-working links, but in this case we already know the deletion reason is currently wrong. The hard part is, the finding out, is done.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 9:12 AM on May 29, 2007

It's herculean to either babysit it waiting to see if it will come back, or to try to track down a Google cache or Coral cache or alternate link just so the post can stay up. I mean, not herculean but more effort than we'll go through for a one link weak-already newsfilterish post. If there were something truly amazing about the post, there's a chance we'd do that. As it is, bringing back deadlink posts just gets confusing, potentially creates more "hey bring back this deadlink deleted posts from two weeks ago" noise and, in this case, starts up the whole OMG HARASSMENTFILTER discussion anew which was what got the post flagged so much to begin with.

The reason for deletion is a guideline and if it will make people feel better to have it be more accurate I'll certainly change it again.
posted by jessamyn at 10:05 AM on May 29, 2007

This is where the good comments are anyways.
posted by nomisxid at 11:56 PM on May 30, 2007

When I was in 7th grade in a small town in Idaho...

Jeez, now that I think about it, that's the story I always tell--but, in fact, the details above come more from the re-telling than memory. All I can really truly remember was that she wore foofy translucent to near transparent blouses underneath which was exposed her bra & ample cleavage all too clearly. The memories of the extreme discomfort of always having to remember to stare at her forehead came from real life, however--for I sat in the front row.
posted by y2karl at 2:22 PM on June 4, 2007